A look inside South Africa's obsession with occult crime, what it reveals

WHAT happens when evil and violence in our society are blamed on a supernatural enemy rather than a feature of human existence in South Africa? From satanist conspiracies and witchcraft accusations to muti murders and demonic possession, a trawl through our national news suggests a society at war with the forces of evil. Why does the occult have such a grasp on our collective imagination?

- LINDSAY SLOGROVE

Nicky Falkof’s book The Devil Made Me Do It - Understanding Occult Crime in South Africa probes the stories, beliefs and rumours behind the so-called occult crimes that have entranced South Africa's fractured psyche.

What can these crimes, and the way they are represented by media, police and other institutions, tell us about South Africa today?

This is an edited extract

On 2 February 2022, a thirteen-year-old boy named Jerobejin van Wyk was reported missing in the town of Klawer in the Western Cape. Days later, his mutilated remains were found on the property of 56-year-old Daniel Smit, who soon admitted to the murder.

Jerobejin was coloured, born and raised in a poor neighbourhood that shadowed the wealthier parts of this still-segregated town. His killer was a white Afrikaner. The boy’s death threatened to shatter the fragile peace of a small farming community and caused outrage across South Africa.

In an even earlier case, in September 1992 a woman named Dawn Orso was discovered strangled to death in her Cape Town home. The killers were soon found to be her teenage daughter, Angelique, and Angelique’s 18-year-old boyfriend, Lawrence van Blerk.

It may seem that there is little that unites these disparate killings. The first featured an older white man attacking a young coloured boy in a rural town. The second was an explosion of adolescent rage, set within the supposedly safe confines of a school. The third was an intimate and intentional act of family violence.