Richard Nyauza

Richard Jabulani Nyauza (born 1970) is a South African serial killer and rapist who murdered 16 women in and around the Rossway Quarry.

Shortly after becoming infected with HIV in 2002, Nyauza murdered his first five victims near Olievenhoutbosch.

Between January and September 2002, the bodies of five unidentified black women were discovered along the Riet River outside of Olievenhoutbosch township in Pretoria.

Investigators initially believed the murders were connected to the "Highwayman" serial killer, who was identified as Elias Chauke in November 2002.

However, Chauke was ruled out as the perpetrator after it was learned that he had been imprisoned for unrelated reasons during the quarry murder series.

Investigators soon exhausted all leads and the case became inactive.

Shortly after murdering his fifth victim, Nyauza was arrested for attempting to rape his girlfriend's nine-year-old daughter.

Although she had been strangled as opposed to Nyauza's previous method of bludgeoning his victims, the killing was quickly linked to the others because of its close proximity to the 2002 murders.

A task force was formed in May to apprehend the perpetrator after five more victims had been found.

Nyauza lured his victims, all black women, by offering them jobs.

He then murdered them, and sometimes raped them, after the two reached a secluded location.

As time passed, Nyauza switched from prominently bludgeoning his victims with stones, and in one case, a plank of wood, to strangling them.

In some cases, he stabbed victims with a screwdriver.

In every case, Nyauza took the murder weapon with him rather than leaving it at the crime scene.

14 of the 16 victims were found fully or partially naked, and Nyauza's semen was recovered from four of them.

Nyauza's DNA had been taken after his arrest for attempted rape in 2002.

At the time, this was not typical in South Africa, as DNA was only used for case investigation, and no DNA had been left on the victim.

A short time later, the DNA found on the fifth victim had also been entered into the database.

However, it was not required that anyone monitor the system at that time, so the match had gone unchecked for four years.

Later that year, he was arrested for attempting to rape a child, but was released in 2005 after being found not guilty.

Weeks later, he began murdering women again in an area about 2.8 kilometers away from the area the original murders occurred in.

In November 2005, he was found not guilty and released.

Five weeks later, he resumed committing crimes.

Nyauza murdered 11 more women until his arrest in 2006.

Following his trial, he was found guilty and given 16 life sentences as well an additional 140 years imprisonment.

After a woman infected him with HIV, Nyauza grew a hatred towards women, believing that they did not deserve to live.

The body of his sixth victim was found on 2 January 2006.

On 17 August 2006, Nyauza noticed a pregnant woman, on her way to Botswana, standing outside of the police station in Magaliesburg police station.

After pulling up next to her in his blue bakkie, he offered her a ride, to which she obliged.

Nyauza first drove to a farm to drop off ostrich feed, and afterwards, the two drove down a dirt road.

Suddenly, he stopped his bakkie, got out of the vehicle, and stabbed the woman in the chest with a screwdriver upon opening the passenger door.

He proceeded to rob her, tie her up with her own shoelaces, close the vehicle's door, and drove until they reached a ditch.

Once at the ditch, Nyauza forced the woman out of his vehicle and told her to look him in the eyes.

She pleaded with him, telling him to stop because he had already taken her belongings.

Nyauza ordered her to shut up and stabbed her in the forehead.

As she screamed in pain, he scolded her for making noise.

He twisted her own nightgown around her neck and began to strangle her.

Nyauza then stabbed her in the back of the neck, removed her undergarments, and put a blanket over her before driving off.

The woman managed to survive, but she lost her baby, eyesight in her left eye, and the use of one of her hands as a result of the attack.

On 5 September 2006, investigators realized that there had been a match between the DNA found on the fifth victim and Nyauza.