Sex worker murders: 'I was with my young son when I found body in unused office,' says caretaker

Cold weather prompted a property caretaker to go upstairs in a building used by a panelbeating business in the Johannesburg CBD where he found a body in an unused office in October 2022.

The bodies of six sex workers were found hidden on the premises.

Michael Kingsley Damian, a caretaker at InterCity Real Estate, visited the Selby premises with his four-year-old son to wash his car as he usually did on Sundays.

He told the Johannesburg high court, sitting in Palm Ridge, that because it was cold that day he decided to fetch warm water upstairs.

“Normally I wash my car outside, but on that day it was cold. On my way upstairs I perceived a strong smell, a bad odour, coming out of the property. I decided to check the reason for that smell.”

He checked the offices and when he opened the door of the third office he found where the smell was coming from.

The office was dark as there was no electricity and he had to use the torch on his cellphone. 

“I saw there was a body on the floor.”

He was with his son at the time. He ran to a security guard and asked him to check if it was a dead person.

Damian is the first witness to be called by the state in the trial of Sifiso Mkhwanazi, accused of raping and killing six sex workers he picked up in the Johannesburg CBD between April and October 2022. 

Mkhwanazi's father, Mark Khumalo, a tenant at the building, was scheduled to testify on Monday but required time to compose himself.

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