The Orange Farm Murders

7/1/2025

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
In South Africa, modest estimates are that more than 50 people are murdered every day, children are not special and are not spared, especially since they are high in demand to be used in dark rituals or muti murders.

Five-year-old Mzwandile Zitho was found dead in a tavern in Orange Farm, south of Johannesburg on 15 April 2020

In April, 2020, The South African reported on the murder of a young boy believed to have been sacrificed in a muti ritual.

Five-year old Mzwandile Zitho, was reported missing by his grandmother, Gogo Nompumelelo Zitho. She'd been bringing up the boy since he was five months old. When the grandmother went to the police station after several, fruitless hours searching for her grandson, she found a neighbor who owned a nearby tavern already there. She was shocked to hear that he told police he found the boy's body in his tavern, and he didn't know how it got there.

Community member Anna Makhubu who entered the tavern described it thus, "When we got there we found Mzwandile naked, standing in an upright position. His hands and feet were bound. There was muthi bottles and a handkerchief that had small ropes in it."

There was a red rope tied around the child's neck. This is evidence the child was used in a muti murder.

Later the grandmother said, "He (neighbor) was telling me not to go to the police station and that we would find Wandi by the end of the day. He was so reassuring, but I was concerned and wanted to find my grandson. I feel betrayed because he was one of the first people to start a search party for Wandi when I told him he was missing. He didn't tell me that my grandson was in his tavern the whole time we were looking for him. He said he also didn't know that Wandi was there."

A postmortem report found that Mzwandile died due to suffocation.

Mpho Makondo, 8, murdered on Sept. 18, 2020

The township south of Johannesburg was plagued with cases of missing children and cruel child murders. By September, 2020, four children were killed, the first being Mzwandile Zitho. A few days after the discovery of the boy's murder, Pontso Mohlanka, 29, was charged with the boy's murder. She along with her husband were arrested. The tavern they owned was located less than 100 feet from Mzwandile's home. Charges were not placed against the man since the prosecutor said there was currently no prima facie case against him. The charges against the woman were withdrawn on August 28.

But before Mzwandile's murder on June 18, 2020 a waste picker came across a plastic bin. Inside was the body of Ansia Kheha, 3, with a stab wound to her upper body. Police investigated the case but with no success in finding the culprit.

Mpho Makondo, 8, and Simphiwe Mncina, 6, two friends were found dead on September, 19, 2020, only hours after being reported missing. The electricity had gone out in the neighborhood that night, but neighbors searched for the girls nonetheless, calling it off at 4 a.m. Their naked bodies were discovered at 5:30 a.m. outside a tavern on Extension 4, the same where Mzwandile Zitho's murder had taken place. The girls had several muthi implements placed on their corpses.

A postmortem report found that both had died due to suffocation.

Wandi Zitho's funeral, c.April, 2020

Pontso Mohlanka the same woman suspected in the murder of Mzwandile Zitho, was rearrested. Police spokeswoman Peters revealed she was illegally in the country, and had killed the girls three days after being released from custody.

Peters said, "Police can confirm that this is the same suspect who was arrested in April, 2020 for the murder of another child, a boy who was her neighbor, after the child’s body was found in her house. The boy had been reported missing earlier in the day on April 15, 2020, and the search led to the woman’s house where the child’s body was found. The woman and her partner were both arrested but charges were withdrawn against the male suspect. The murder case of April, 2020 has been temporarily withdrawn in court pending the outcome of the toxicology report. The 29-year-old woman was released from custody on September 16, 2020, three days before the murder of the two children."

In September 2022, Pontso Mohlanka was sentenced to three life terms for the crime.

African juju house

Every year approximately three children per day are killed in South Africa according to official records. Many believe the figure is undercounted. Shanaaz Mathews, the country’s leading expert on child homicides, thinks there are many victims that are completely missed; there is no investigation nor prosecution into the crime. She said, "Violence has become entrenched in the psyche of South Africa. How do we break that cycle? The number (of children killed) are not going down. If anything, they are going up."

Joan van Niekerk, a child protection expert, recounts numerous cases tainted by police ineptitude and corruption.

Even though some children fall victim to their own family members, there is a large number which are killed in use of "medicine murders", where they are mutilated and tortured alive, since their agony is believed to increase the "juju" of the body parts.

These "blood rituals" are mostly used to invoke prosperity, riches and good luck. Some believe "political correctness" has allowed the practice to flourish, "since it is one part of indigenous African culture, which the media is not particularly eager to let the public know about."

Tribal healers hold a wide belief in the power of human sacrifice, and some have been known to kill their own children in ceremonies.

What are human body parts used for in mouth practices?…

In 2011, there was a 10-year "moratorium" on crime statistics.

In 2001, approximately 2,500 South African "were caught in possession of human parts, many of which were traded through the hospitals."

Africans with albanism (albinos), are especially at risk since their body parts are highly prized due to their supposed power. Their organs can cost tens of thousands of dollars, leading investigators to believe that human sacrifice is practiced in the some of the highest circles of African society. In 2009, according to the Red Cross, at least 50 albinos were murdered for their body parts.

The belief in the powers of muti (muthi) is not a recent phenomenon. A testimony described n Muti Ritual Murder in Natal: From Chiefs to Commoners (1900-1930), prove that victims, especially children were slaughtered in order to meet the demands of sangomas to complete their rituals.

The Torso in the Thames case (2001) is thought to be the first muti murder in England.

Although many Sangomas, or witch doctors, offer cures for ailments using only herbal remedies, some believe that animal and human body parts have special powers to bring good fortune.

In 2013, it became known that a brisk, black market trade of human body parts and organs was being operated at Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital in Swaziland, a South African country. It was described as an "open secret". Buyers came from all parts of South Africa to buy bones, hearts, brains and other organs.

It is thought between 60 and 85% of South Africans believe in witchcraft and black magic and in the medicinal effects of muti to cure them or improve their lives.

South African crime figures show that in the six months from April to September 2022, 558 child murders and 294 attempted child murders were committed. It's suspected many of them were tied to muti rituals, even though statistics do not differentiate on motive.

Gérard Labuschagne, of the South African Police Service's Investigative Psychology Unit, investigated dozens of muti murders. He confirmed the removal of genitals is the hallmark of muti killings and that it is normally before death. Writing in the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling in January 2004, he explains the underlying belief system of muti:

In traditional African beliefs, it is assumed that there is only a certain amount of luck in society. Each individual receives a portion of that luck. It is therefore believed that if another person is successful, then they have obtained an extra portion of luck via devious means, usually with the intervention of the supernatural.

Setbacks or calamities, such as drought or illness, are signs that the natural and social order have been disturbed. One means of obtaining this extra portion of luck or restoring the natural order is through the use of strong muti. It is with this strong muti that muti murders are often associated. Muti made from human body parts is considered to be exceptionally powerful.

(In Swaziland) There seems to be an increase in grave robbing, where the body parts removed are similar to those used in muti. Also, theft or sale of body parts from hospitals and mortuaries has occurred. It is uncertain whether or not the traditional healer would be able to tell if a body part is removed pre- or post-mortem

There were so many crimes tied into muti that a special unit called the South African Police Force Occult-Related Crime Unit was created in 1981 by Dr. Kobus "Hound of God" Jonker.