When monsters walk among us Inside the dark world of serial killers 

Source: When monsters walk among us Inside the dark world of serial killers – herald

Emmanuel Kafe, Features Writer
They do not arrive with horns or warning signs but politely, sit quietly in our midst, and move through daily life unnoticed.

Then a body is found in the bush, another person vanishes, and rumours begin to stride faster than truth. Fear tightens, and an unbearable realisation settles in: the danger was never distant.

Sometimes, it lives next door. That unsettling truth confronted the Guruve community of Mashonaland Central Province, recently. Even before the ear-piercing sirens, the clanking handcuffs and the screaming headlines, a quiet unease had already settled in.

Women disappeared, families searched and communities whispered. Something was wrong, but it had no name. Then a man emerged from the fog of rumour and became a headline.
Enter Zvitsva, the stealth predator

Anymore Zvitsva, the new menace of Guruve, operated quietly and methodically, targeting mainly vulnerable women who moved alone or were socially and economically exposed.

Police believe he exploited familiarity and trust, drawing victims into secluded areas like forests and disused paths where neither resistance nor witness were likely.

As court papers show, the attacks were spread over time and location, a pattern that allowed him to evade immediate detection.

In one case, the court heard that Zvitsva allegedly encountered a woman moving alone within Guruve District, and engaged her under the guise of familiarity — a request for assistance or casual conversation.

He then persuaded her to divert from a familiar route into a more secluded area, where her absence would not immediately attract attention.

When she failed to return home and could not be contacted, relatives reported her missing.

Her body was later discovered in a remote location, linking her disappearance to a pattern that investigators allege was repetitive.

Zvitsva now stands accused of killing repeatedly, allegedly moving silently between homesteads within Guruve. He faces eight counts of murder covering 19 alleged victims, alongside charges of attempted murder and rape.

The courts will determine his guilt.

But even before judgment, the case has forced the nation to look into a darkness many prefer to believe exists only elsewhere. Zimbabwe has known violence in many forms. But serial killing — deliberate, repetitive, cold — carries a particular terror.

It raises questions that extend far beyond one accused man.

How does an ordinary person become capable of extraordinary cruelty? Are such individuals “mad”, “possessed”, “evil” — or something far more disturbing: painfully human?

This deep dive traces the dark pathways of serial murder from Zimbabwe’s own history to the global stage; from courtrooms to consulting rooms, from pulpits to traditional councils, and to the raw grief of families who never get to say goodbye.

Southern Africa’s gallery of predators

South Africa knows the phenomenon too well. Its large cities, dense populations and anonymity have long provided space for shadows to move.

In the 1990s, Moses Sithole — dubbed the “ABC Killer” because his crimes stretched from Atteridgeville to Boksburg and Cleveland — was convicted of raping and murdering dozens of women.

His sentence of more than 2 000 years was symbolic. It was a legal declaration that he would never again walk among the masses.

There was also Cedric Maake, the “Wemmer Pan Killer”, who stalked Johannesburg’s streets with terrifying regularity; and Jack Mogale, whose crimes demonstrated how killers can blend seamlessly into everyday life while carrying a darkness few people suspect.

Maake, who terrorised Johannesburg in the late 1990s, was convicted of murdering at least 27 people, although investigators suspected the number was higher.

He targeted couples and individuals in parks, townships and isolated spaces, attacking swiftly and with lethal intent before disappearing back into the city’s sprawl. His victims were often shot or stabbed at close range, their lives ending with chilling efficiency. In court, Maake showed little remorse.

He was sentenced to multiple life terms, effectively ensuring that he would never walk free again. Jack Mogale, by contrast, unsettled South Africa for different reasons.

Known as the “West End Serial Killer,” Mogale murdered at least 16 people between 2008 and 2009, many of whom were elderly or vulnerable.

He gained access by presenting himself as harmless; a man asking for water, directions or assistance, before turning on his victims inside their own homes.

Several were strangled or beaten, their trust becoming the weapon used against them.
Mogale blended seamlessly into everyday life, a reminder that danger does not always announce itself. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. These cases shocked South Africa, and reshaped policing, forensic science and citizen awareness.

Beyond Africa
Beyond Africa, the list of serial killers is chillingly long. In the former Soviet Union, Andrei Chikatilo, a school teacher, murdered at least 52 women and children between the late 1970s and early 1990s.

He targeted runaways and vulnerable youths near railway stations, luring them with food or money before killing them in forests and abandoned buildings.

For years, authorities refused to accept that a serial killer could exist under socialism. His arrest in 1990 and execution four years later forced a reckoning with that denial. In the United States, Aileen Wuornos shattered stereotypes. A homeless sex worker, she killed seven men along Florida highways between 1989 and 1990. She claimed self-defence against violent clients. The courts rejected her account. She was executed in 2002.

Then there was Ted Bundy: educated, charming, disarmingly polite. In the 1970s he lured dozens of young women across multiple states, kidnapping, raping and murdering while evading police, escaping custody and turning his trial into spectacle.

His execution in 1989 changed how America understood danger.

Different countries, same lesson. Evil does not always look like a monster.

A pattern written in blood
Serial killers do not emerge from nowhere. Criminologists define them as offenders who kill repeatedly over time, separated by “cooling-off” periods that can last months or years.

Those pauses distinguish them from mass murderers who kill many at once.
Zimbabwe has, until recently, been spared frequent headlines of this kind. Yet there are names that still echo uneasily.

Brighton Zhantali remains etched in collective memory, linked to the rape and murder of women across several places, including Marondera, Mutare, Rusape and Goromonzi.

In another disturbing case, a serial rapist from Chivi was sentenced to an effective 72 years in jail after pleading guilty to eight counts of rape, and shocking the court by requesting a death sentence, saying he could not exorcise the evil that drove him to commit the crimes.

At his initial court appearance, the man claimed to be part of a satanic cult bent on spilling blood and having unprotected sex to breed others like him, assertions the court rejected as it imposed the long sentence.

Years later, the Zvitsva case has reopened those psychological wounds.
He is alleged to have targeted mostly women across multiple districts, his movements unnoticed until arrests were announced.

His case is still unfolding in court, but it has already thrust Zimbabwe into a global conversation about serial murder and the fragile boundary between the ordinary and the monstrous.

Serial killing is no longer something confined to foreign documentaries. It has a local address.
The persistent question is: Are serial killers “mad” or simply human?

The instinctive response is to label serial killers as lunatics or demons, for it is comforting and creates distance.

Psychologists urge caution
“Most serial killers are not psychotic,” says Dr Mercy Matare, a criminal psychologist. “They do not hallucinate voices that command them to kill. Many are chillingly rational. They plan, calculate and conceal.” What often emerges, she explains, are deep-seated personality disorders, particularly antisocial personality disorder marked by emotional detachment and lack of remorse, sometimes combined with childhood trauma or abuse.

“The human brain can compartmentalise empathy,” Dr Matare says. “Some individuals learn early that other people’s pain is irrelevant.

“Others experience such severe neglect or violence that they internalise cruelty as power. Still, others are driven by sexual compulsions, fantasies or the thrill of control.”

She pauses before answering her own question: “Is it normal? No. But it is human and that is what frightens us most.” Dr Stephen Bhebhe, also a psychologist, cautions against simple explanations.

There is no “serial killer gene”, no universal link to witchcraft, and no single cause rooted in poverty alone. Rather, serial violence develops at the intersection of multiple forces.

“Certain warning signs appear with troubling consistency,” Dr Bhebhe says. “Early cruelty to animals, fascination with fire, persistent deceit, an alarming absence of remorse. Others grow up isolated, shaped by humiliation or abuse, internalising the idea that pain equals power.”

Over time, fantasies of domination may harden into belief.

“For some,” Dr Bhebhe explains, “killing becomes a way of asserting control, erasing witnesses, silencing fear. It is not sudden. It is a gradual opportunity meeting intention, silence becoming permission.”

The law’s narrow line — mad or guilty?
The courtroom does not deal in demons. It deals in responsibility. Yet sometimes demons are called for exorcism.

Advocate Bernard Muzondo explains how Zimbabwean law approaches such cases.

“We ask two questions: did the accused commit the act, and did they understand that what they were doing was wrong?”

If an accused person is found mentally incapable of appreciating their actions, the court may order psychiatric detention rather than imprisonment.

“But the bar is high,” Advocate Muzondo says.

“Many serial killers know that what they are doing is illegal — hence the secrecy, the concealment of bodies and the evasion of police.”

Where guilt and sanity are established, the consequences are severe.

“The law is not only punitive, it is preventative. Society must be protected,” Advocate Muzondo stresses.
Zimbabwe’s evolving stance on the death penalty and life imprisonment has reshaped sentencing, but the principle remains unchanged: serial murder attracts the gravest consequences the law can impose.
When faith and culture speak

Where psychology sees pathology and the law sees culpability, faith sees spiritual rupture.
“Murder is rebellion against God’s creation,” says Pastor Tendai Marangwanda.

“It is not just crime; it is spiritual darkness. Deliverance may be possible, but accountability before God and the State remains.”

He speaks of healing for traumatised families and communities, and of the need to teach young men in particular how to deal with anger, rejection and hardship without violence.

Traditional leaders offer another lens.
Chief Makope (Godwin Zambara Makope) of Mazowe District in Mashonaland Central Province says repeated killing disrupts the balance between the living and the ancestors.

“When blood is shed again and again, it is not only the victim’s family that cries.
“The land itself is disturbed. Such acts bring misfortune upon a lineage. Rituals of cleansing are required for the murderer’s family and the community because life is sacred.”

He says the law may punish the crime, but culture and faith absorb the shock.
After the headlines fade

Serial killers eventually become case numbers, academic papers, and documentaries. For families left behind, the story never ends. Graves remain.

The alleged crimes in Guruve have reopened national debates about mental health, policing, belief systems and justice.

This is not a story about one man alone. It is about the fragile social fabric that binds communities and the darkness that sometimes tears through it.

Humanity may never fully understand why some people choose to kill again and again.
But the most terrifying truth about serial killers is not that they are monsters. It is that they are human.