Sifiso Mkhwanazi, the 20-year-old arrested in connection with the murder of six sex workers, applied for bail at the Johannesburg Magistrates Court on Monday morning.
Mkhwanazi was arrested after six bodies were discovered in a building in Johannesburg earlier this month.
Sex worker murders
Mkhwanazi’s bail application
To date, Mkhwanazi has been charged with only one count of murder. The state reportedly only has evidence to link him to one murder.
Mkhwanazi on Monday made an appearance at the magistrates court but abandone his bail applicaiton.
The case continues and he will be charged with one count of murder.
ALSO READ: Drugging men with Eyegene: Prince Lethukuthula’s killers confess
The case against Mkhwanazi
The discovery of six bodies of sex workers rocked the community, with police spokesperson Brigadier Brenda Muridili saying officers were called to the cuildig “due to a foul smell”.
“That is when a body of a woman was found. A preliminary investigation led the police to the suspect, believed to be the last person seen with the deceased woman”.
Crowds gathered outside the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court earlier this month to after an ID parade was postponed because an official was in church.
Calls for death sentence
Sex workers told The Citizen’s Lunga Mzangwe that Mkhwanazi deserved to die: “The women he murdered had children, families, and they will never come back”.
“A life sentence will never be enough. He deserves to die a death as painful as the ones they suffered at his hands”, said one woman who asked to remain anonymous.
Another sex worker alleged Mkhwanazi was the last person to be seen with the woman who disappeared three months ago.
“He took her in front of my eyes, he left with her and the following day, she never came back. We have tried to look for her, but we never found her”.
ALSO READ: Murder of six women a demonstration that sex workers’ backs are against the wall
Additional reporting by Lunga Mzangwe.