How tenacious cop caught rapist after 6 years on the run

Imagine this: You're a police officer tasked with finding a serial rapist who had evaded arrest for years.

You don't know what he looks like. He has no ID book and is homeless, which means there is no address for you to check him at nor neighbours to ask after his whereabouts.

This is the situation Sgt Anny Peter found herself in last year July when she was given the task of finding and bringing to book a suspect that had raped four children.

All that Peter had was a name and a description by the victims – dreadlocks and a scar on the face.

The matter was made harder by the fact that the cases were opened at different police stations in the Free State.

However, the 41-year-old mother of two has always welcomes a challenge in her work. She arrested the suspect a month after her commander gave her the cases in July 2023 to investigate.

"I like things that keep me on my toes as they afford me a chance to use my knowledge and skills," she said.

Peter, a crime intelligence officer, works for the Mangaung Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit.

Vuyisile Mamokgwe's first recorded rape case was in 2017. The second one in 2019, the third 2022 and the last in 2023.

The victims, who were all teenagers, were attacked at their homes or on the streets. The DNA from the rapes was later linked to the one that was taken from him 14 years earlier when he was arrested for an unrelated. The matter was later withdrawn.

Police had the name but they didn't have the picture of the perpetrator. Armed only with the name, Peter hit the streets, looking for anyone who may know Mamokgwe.

Peter also had to trace the victims as well, but most had moved from their parental homes.

"I went to Facebook and managed to get one. I also looked for their names at clinics, asked home affairs to help and also approached the department of social development. I finally found them all," she said proudly.

Every morning Peter hit the streets to look for Mamokgwe, working very long hours.

Another challenge, she said, was that most men did not want to give information after realising she was a police officer. In some instances, she had to go undercover.

"I pretended to be looking for a gardener. I would tell people that I heard that Mamokgwe is a gardener and whether they knew him and where I could find him," she said.

After weeks of not getting leads, Peter's breakthrough came one morning when she had just arrived at work. An informer told her that the person she was looking for could be living at a dump site somewhere in Bloemfontein. She immediately rushed there and called other officers for backup.

"When I got there, I pretended to be throwing things out of my car. I saw a man nearby and asked him to help me get stuff out of my car.

"As soon as he was inside I told him I was looking for someone. One thing about tsotsis, they know police and this man told me that he doesn't want to be seen with me, then he directed me to a particular shack."

After getting the information, Peter went where she was directed and saw Mamokgwe. She said despite not having his picture, what he saw in him fitted the description by the victims.

'I stepped closer to Mamokgwe and she grabbed him to make sure he was under control. I told him he was under arrest, and read him his rights."

According to Peter, Mamokgwe did not even try to run. 

"He said to me, 'I will cooperate; everything comes to an end'."

Her colleagues arrived and took Mamokgwe into custody.

Last week he was handed a 32-year sentence in the Bloemfontein regional court, after pleading guilty to the rapes.

According to Peter, finding rapists and ensuring that victims get justice is therapeutic to her.

She said she was raped as a 13-year-old girl and even though the perpetrator was known, no one opened a case.  She decided to become a police officer to get justice for rape victims. 

"I go all out to give them [victims] the justice I did not get," she said.

Spokesperson for the Free State police Capt Lorraine Earle said Peter, working with prosecutor Azola Key from the National Prosecuting Authority, managed to lead evidence and secured a successful conviction.

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