Ekurhuleni murders: 11 bodies, 8 cases without arrests

What is confirmed about the Ekurhuleni murders count

The body of an eleventh woman was found in an open veld near Rhokana Road in Springs at about 12:00 on Sunday, 27 September 2026. A security company vehicle patrolling the area saw it and alerted police.

Gauteng police spokesperson Brigadier Brenda Muridili said “a security company vehicle patrolling the area noticed the body and alerted the police”, and that the task team investigating the Ekurhuleni murder cases had been mobilised alongside crime scene management, Investigative Psychology Services, detectives and Crime Intelligence. Gauteng Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant General Tommy Mthombeni travelled to the scene.

The woman has not been identified. Police have said she was partially clothed.

That takes the number of women’s bodies found across Ekurhuleni since July to eleven. It came a day after a tenth body was found at Mooifontein Cemetery in Thembisa South, and hours after a suspect was arrested in that case.

Eleven bodies, three arrests, eight cases without one

Arrests have been announced in three of the eleven cases. That leaves eight with no publicly announced arrest. The count is Southafriworld’s, made against the police record, and police may have made arrests they have not disclosed.

The three arrests do not sit evenly. In the Ntimba case, three people were initially arrested, one man and two women. One report states the man was later released after police cited insufficient evidence, and police have reportedly linked that killing to a localised dispute rather than to the wider series. In the Nxumalo case a suspect was arrested in Tzaneen, Limpopo, on the evening of 26 September after allegedly fleeing there.

Nobody arrested has been named. None has been convicted.

The pace has changed, and the numbers show it

The monthly distribution is where the change is visible.

One body was found in July. Two were found in August. Eight have been found in September.

Within September the sequence tightened further. Six bodies were found in the eleven days from 7 to 17 September. Then came a nine-day interval, and then two bodies in two days over the final weekend.

That is arithmetic from the dates in the police record, and it is the clearest measure available of how the situation has moved since Southafriworld first reported this investigation.

The task team assembled in response draws on the Murder and Robbery Unit and the Investigative Psychology Unit, together with forensic and data specialists, fingerprint experts, intelligence officers, Home Affairs officials and criminologists.

Police have twice warned against the framing now dominating coverage

Much of the coverage now treats these deaths as the work of one person. Police have not said that, and have twice indicated the opposite.

They have cautioned against linking all eleven deaths despite the similarities between some of them, and they have reportedly separated the Ntimba case as a localised dispute.

Police are investigating the cases collectively while working to establish whether any are in fact connected. Those are different things. A task team examining eleven cases together is a method, not a finding.

There is a second counting problem. A woman’s body recovered from Moroka Dam in Soweto in September has been folded into a Gauteng total of twelve by at least one broadcaster. Police have not linked that death to the Ekurhuleni cases, and on the police record the Ekurhuleni count stands at eleven.

This matters beyond accuracy. A single-offender framing changes what precautions people take and where, and it has already produced circulating photographs of people alleged online to be involved. Police have issued no wanted poster, identikit or suspect photograph, and sharing such images risks harming innocent people and compromising a prosecution. It is the kind of pressure that has been reshaping how South Africans move through their own areas for years.

What is outstanding

Two of the eleven women have not been identified, one found in the Clayville River on 7 September and the one found in Springs on Sunday. A third name is being withheld pending family notification.

Police have offered a reward of R400 000 for information. Anyone with information can contact their nearest police station, call Crime Stop on 08600 10111, or use the MySAPS app.

Anyone affected by gender-based violence can contact the GBV Command Centre on 0800 428 428, which operates around the clock.

President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Heritage Day that government would address the nation on gender-based violence measures and update the country on this investigation. No date has been given for that address.

Eight cases have produced no publicly announced arrest. Two women remain unnamed. Police have not established whether any of the eleven cases are connected, and the deployments that followed earlier surges in violent crime, including the use of soldiers in crime hotspots, have not prevented two more bodies being found in a single weekend.

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