The Phoenix Strangler Poem by Chinedu Dike

With promise of job,
he lured her into a cane field.
His gentleness a veil of sanity.
Lurking in his mind,
a perversion of sex instinct:
'Bind her! Torture her! Kill her! '

Deep within comfort zone
suddenly brandishing his bludgeon,
countenance wearing mercilessness -
sight of which imported terror into her spine.
Desperate plea for mercy fueling his excitement.
Menacingly, her clothes he demanded.

Hissing in agony like pine tree,
gnashing her teeth before the incubus,
she stripped.
Her nudity assaulting his senses,
eyes flaming with lust,
he took stock of the bared flesh:
'Beautiful! Submissive! Horrified! '

Bound and gagged,
fantasy translating into reality,
all hell broke loose...
Urge gratified,
with her undergarment around her neck,
he sealed her fate.

Sixteenth victim of the unhinged mind:
Single mother of two horrendously murdered.
Not quite long, no sooner had he got home
than long arm of the law tapped his shoulders:
DNA found on victims had matched his.

Karma forced to be lenient,
he lives albeit in confinement.
No Death Penalty In Mzansi.







NOTE: Mzansi is the affectionate name for South Africa.

The Phoenix Strangler - Sipho Mandla Agmatir Thwala (born 1968) is a South African rapist and serial killer. He began his year-long rape and murder spree in 1996. His modus operandi was to lure local women into accompanying him through the sugarcane field near the town of Phoenix in KwaZulu-Natal Providence with the promise of employment as domestic servants in hotels. Once they were deep within the cane field, Thwala would attack the women, bind them with their undergarments and then rape, strangle and bludgeon them to death. Afterwards, hoping to destroy any physical evidence of the attack, he would set fire to the cane fields.

Thwala was arrested in 1997 after South African police matched DNA found on the victims to DNA taken from Thwala in 1994 when he was arrested and acquitted for a rape charge.

On March 31,1999, the High Court in Durban found Thwala guilty of 16 murders and 10 rapes and sentenced him to 506 years in prison.

Thwala is currently being held at CMax penitentiary in Pretoria South Africa.



The picture displayed below is that of Sipho Mandla Agmatir Thwala -
popularly referred to in South Africa as The Phoenix Strangler.