Joburg sex workers murders trial: missing dustbins, a dead cat and mysteriously opened windows

The father of Sifiso Mkhwanazi, accused of raping and killing six sex workers, was suspicious of his son a few days before the discovery of the bodies in his workshop. 

Mark Khumalo testified in the Johannesburg high court, sitting in Palm Ridge, that though he was suspicious of what his son was up to, he could not believe he was capable of such vicious acts. 

“He would be the last person I might have suspected would do this until I'd seen it with my own eyes,” he told the court. 

Days before the bodies were found, Khumalo noticed dustbins at the workshop were missing.

After the third bin went missing he became suspicious.

Khumalo, a tenant at the building, started asking his six employees and a cleaner about the missing bins. The cleanertold him she didn't know where the bins were kept. He then asked his son.

“He told me he thinks the dustbins must be [on the ground floor] — they took them to throw [away] rubbish and they might have left them there.

“I asked him to look. I kept on insisting and he brought a smaller dustbin and put it where we normally throw [away] the rubbish.”  

About three days before the bodies were discovered, they noticed a bad odour coming from the workshop. Just before that, they   found the upper windows at the workshop open. 

“I ordered them to be closed and when we came [the next] day we found them open again. That's when we started to smell a strong stench. I asked people at the workshop what was [and] where the smell was coming from.”

His son said there was a dead cat under one of the vehicles in the workshop but he had cleaned it. The bodies were discovered later that week.

Before the bodies were discovered, he asked his son to do his job, but “I [could] see he is tired. He wanted to sleep, which wasn't him before. I was asking myself, 'what's wrong with you'?”

They believe a car in the workshop was used to hide one of the bodies, but it was removed when it became badly decomposed. 

“When the police came with the dogs, the dogs were sniffing around. They got to the car, but when we opened the boot there wasn't a body,” he said. 

“When this all happened, I heard from my cleaner that she was cleaning one day when she saw something strange, like a fluid spilling on the floor with flies from the car.

“The lady found him cleaning and he told her — that's what I heard from my cleaner —  that he asked her 'can you help me to clean?' She asked him why [and he said] because there was a cat that died in there and then she helped him to clean,” said Khumalo. 

Mkhwanazi faces six counts of murder, seven of rape, six of defeating or obstructing the administration of justice, robbery with aggravating circumstances and unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges. 

Last week he admitted killing the six women and concealing their bodies at different locations at the panelbeating business.

Khumalo is expected to continue his testimony on Tuesday. 

Earlier, Michael Kingsley Damian, a caretaker at the building, testified how he discovered one body.

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