Welcome to Unsolved Murders Essay, a true crime podcast
based on investigations that at the time of producing this
episode was still open. The views, information or
opinions expressed in the series or solely those of the
individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of
Swisher Post, its parent company and its partners.
Some of the content featured in the series describes details of
extreme violence, therefore viewers discretion is strongly
advised. Before we get into this episode,
we'd like to thank you in advance for subscribing to our
podcast. Every like, comment and
subscription goes a long way in helping us grow our Unsolved
Murders essay community. If you are a new listener then
please do us a favour and subscribe to our podcast.
The audio version of Unsolved Murders Essay is available on
Spotify, SoundCloud and Apple Podcasts.
We also upload video versions of these episodes on YouTube.
Simply search Unsolved Murders Essay, subscribe to our channel
and turn our notifications to stay abreast with every upload.
We are a self funded media startup so if you enjoy our
content, buying us a cup of coffee is one way to help us
grow. Thank you in advance for your
support. Understanding the mind of a
person who targets minors for sex crimes is a complex and
sensitive area of study. Such individuals often exhibit a
range of psychological, social, and environmental factors that
contribute to their behavior. Many individuals who target
minors for sex crimes have pedophilic disorder.
Pedophilic disorder is a psychiatric condition
characterized by an enduring sexual attraction to
prepubescent children. It's considered a paraphernic
disorder, which means it involves a typical sexual
interests or behaviors. It's essential to understand
that not everyone with a sexual interest in minors meets the
criteria for this disorder, as it requires specific clinical
features and distress or impairment in functioning.
According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, DSM 5, which is used by mental health professionals
for diagnosis, the key criteria for paedophilic disorder include
recurrent intense sexually arousing fantasies, urges or
behaviours involving prepubescent children.
Typically under the age of 13. The person has acted on these
urges or experiences significant distress or impairment in daily
life due to these attractions and the person is at least 16
years old and at least five years older than the child or
children they are attracted to. Pedophilic disorder is further
categorized into two subtypes. Exclusive type which means the
person is exclusively attracted to children or non exclusive
type, the person is attracted to both children and adults.
Norman Afzal Simons, the subject of this episode falls somewhere
in the Gray area that separates these two subtypes.
Simons tried much to his anguish to mask his deep seated lust for
minors. For the most part of his adult
life he was intelligent. His colleagues and neighbors
described him as a friendly and unassuming person.
However, bubbling beneath the surface of that veil, they one
of South Africa's most sadistic and bruthless killers, who, all
factors considered, may have outwitted the country's feeble
justice system. There are conflicting records of
Norman Afsar Simons's background, but based on court
documents we obtained, here's what we know about his past.
In his writings later recognized that trial as admissible
confessions, Simons revealed that he was born on January
27th, 1967 in Greenpoint, Cape Town.
His mother and father were of different ethnic groups.
Simons was brought up as a closa growing up in Queenstown in the
Eastern Cape Province. Professor Zabo, the psychiatrist
who examined Simons at Falkenburg Hospital shortly
after he was arrested, wrote in his report that he came from a
disruptive background characterized by frequent
changes in residents and schools during his childhood.
While it's unclear if his mother was aware of his mental
condition, Simons had a personality disorder that
manifested into severe instances of depression later on in his
life. Records show he periodically
received short term treatment for his condition, which for the
most part was ineffective without the existence of primary
dodge from the horse's mouth, or at the very least insiders with
intimate knowledge. Piercing together a
chronological timeline of Simon's history of mental health
was a tall order. However, from the research we
conducted, we determined that somewhere in his childhood, a
series of events with severe traumatic repercussions molded
the disturbed mind of the man believed to be the station
Strangler. It's not outside the realm of
possibility that Simons's parents were most probably
ignorant of his mental health issues.
In a statement he wrote the days after he was arrested, Simons
revealed that in response to a series of episodes linked to his
mental disorder, his parents performed A ritual that involved
slaughtering a goat and amputating his and his sister's
ring fingers. Of course, the custom had little
to no impact on his mental wellbeing.
In fact, in the letter, Simons revealed that much of his sexual
deviance was grown by a neighbour and old woman who he
claimed had placed an evil spot on him.
She actually portrayed my future to me, he wrote.
While he did not go into detail about the things the neighbour
did to him, Simons did reveal that she planted dirt in him.
He said this was a main element in most of his deeds, as she had
planted the darkness in him. He returned to Cape Town in 1982
and moved into his mother's house.
His stepfather was also a Prosser and he never really knew
his biological father. Simons also had a stepbrother
who exerted a lot of influence on his sexual deviance.
By 1983, Simons was subjected to repeated acts of sexual abuse
and sodomy inflicted by his stepbrother in his writings.
Simons identified this stage of his life as the foundation of
his sexual fixation with minors. By the time he was in the trick,
Simon succumbed to his inhibitions and kicked off his
killing spree. He said that he had acted in
response to the voice of his brother inside him.
It's believed Simons claimed his first victim in 1986.
The decomposing body of 14 year old Jonathan Classen was
discovered near Mudder Drum Station in Belleville S on
Friday, October 3rd, 1986. Pieces of Classen's clothing
were tightly wrapped around his neck and hands which were bound
behind his back. A forensic examination
determined that the teenage boy was sodomized and died from
strangulation. Naturally, at the time, Cape
Town police had no clue that for the next 8 years they'd be
reeled into a sordid cat's mouse chase with a sadistic child
predator. Three months later, on
Wednesday, January 7th, 1987, ten year old Yusuf Hoffmann's
badly decomposed body was discovered in bushes situated
near sewage plant in Mitchell's plane.
Investigators noted that his body too was found in a similar
position, face planted in the sand with pieces of his clothing
tightly wrapped around his neck and hands, still without the
necessary communication resources.
At the time, police had not established a link between the
two cases. However, this change drastically
when on Friday, January 23rd 1987, two weeks after Hoffman's
discovery, the decomposing body of Mario Thomas, a 13 year old
from Mannenburg, was found in a field in Sarepta near Kills
River. It might be that at the time
police were not necessarily looking into the three cases as
a string of murders committed by single person or group.
However, it was established early that the crime scenes
boy's striking resemblance, the bodies were all badly
decomposed. There were signs of sodomy and
all of the victims who struggled with pieces of their clothing.
The absence of documentation of Simons's life in this period
made it impossible to add greater context to this
timeline. However, it can be reasonably
assumed that his stepbrother still exerted a great deal of
influences in his life. In 1987, Simons was presumably
17 years old and possibly a high school or early college student
studying toward a qualification in teaching.
Existing records show that Simons was very intelligent.
People who knew him later testified in his trial that he
spoke 7 languages including English, Afrikaans, Crossa and
French, albeit our research could not establish this as a
fact. Alas, if we are to believe that
Simon's was the station strangler, then his fourth
victim, a boy whose identity remains unknown, was discovered
on Thursday April 9th 1987 around the same area.
Clausen's body was found in a bushy area near Motor Dam
Station Bowval S The remains of his 5th victim, 12 year old
Freddie Cleaves, were discovered in a ditch nearby Hart Station
on Friday June 26th, 1987. Two months later, on Tuesday
August 25th, 1987, the decomposing body of 15 year old
Samuel GABA was discovered in the same area.
By the time his 7th victim was found, an unidentified preteen
whose remains were discovered near Modern Dam station on
Thursday, October 1st, 1987, a wave of fear exacerbated by news
headlines warning of a serial killer targeting children had
spread across the Cape Flats. Interestingly, The Stranger went
dark for four months before the 2nd wave of his killing spree
began with the discovery of nine year old Calvin Spiro's body
near the Unibal Station in Baja on Monday, February 8th, 1988.
Bizarrely, the Strangler went dark for over a year and
according to existing records, claimed his 9th victim, 11 year
old Denver Gazoo, whose body was found at the surreptestation on
Saturday November 11th, 1989. Once again, almost three years
passed with no gruesome sightings of The Stranglers
victims. Perhaps by then Simons had
buried his urges far enough to complete his teaching
qualification and enroll as a Grade 5 teacher at Alpine
Primary School, an environment certainly unsuitable for a
deranged child killer. An important event occurred in
Simons's life before he went on his third and final wave of
killings. Again, this is based on the
presumption that he is the station strangler.
In 1991 his stepbrother, who was described as a loose cannon and
an alcoholic, was murdered. In his later writings, Simons
revealed he had already been suppressing the haunting voice
of the old lady who had deflowered him back in
Queenstown. Perhaps this woman's voice had
instructed him to murder nine children before the death of his
stepbrother. Alas, according to Simon's, his
stepbrother spirit haunted him too, egging him to sodomize and
murder more children. Sure enough, on Tuesday, October
27th, 1992 the body of 11 year old Yakobis Lao was discovered
on Nandi Beach's Dunes near Mitchell's Plain.
On Thursday, January 13th, 1994, a municipal worker came across
the body of an unidentified boy in the Valta Frioda doings in
Mitchell's Plain. During the following two weeks,
more bodies were found strong among the dunes.
The killer's pace had accelerated to 11 victims in one
month. The body of Elino Sprinkle, 11
was discovered on Thursday, January 20th, 1994.
Four days later, on Tuesday, January 25th, 1994, the bodies
of Donovan Swartz, 10, and Jeremy Benjamin, 12, were found
lying about 20 meters apart. The next portion of this
recording is an account of events written by Mickey
Pistorius, author of Stranglers on the Street Serial Homicide in
South Africa, a gripping book that explores several cases
which you can purchase online for as little as 135 grand.
In the book, Prestorius wrote, the community of Mitchell's
plane became hysterical after these discoveries and joined
members of the South African police force in a search party
the following weekend. Their search led to the gruesome
discovery of eight more bodies and January 26th, 1994 the body
of Jeremy Smith, 13 was found and on January 27th, 1994 the
bodies of Marcelino Cupido, 9 Neville Samai, 14, an
unidentified young boy and an adult male were found.
The bodies of best friends, 8 year old Fabian Willomore and 11
year old Owen Hofmeister were discovered lying side by side.
They had been strangled with each other's clothing.
Another unidentified boy, fully clothed was found in the dunes.
He was lying on his back and his hands had been tied with nylon
cord. He had been strangled with the
same cord. His underpants were found
nearby. At this stage the station
Stranglers victims totaled 21. The community of Mitchell's
plane gathered at the local police station, demanding the
station stranglers head. They formed vigilante groups and
any man seen in the company of a young boy feared for his life.
As angry mobs chased suspicious looking individuals into the
dunes, the community stormed the Steinberg police station, broke
down fences, and demolished private homes if they thought a
suspect might be hiding there. They formed units that spend
days and nights searching the sewers beneath Mitchell's plane,
and they patrolled school grounds.
Learners were lectured on the dangers of being approached by
strangers and school schedules were changed to enable younger
children to be accompanied home by the older children.
In the churches. Congregations prayed for the
souls of the victims and for their families.
The families of the victims buried their sons and grieved,
some in private and some in public.
At night, though, police still spotted youngsters walking alone
on the streets. The Mitchell's Plain community
turned to the South African police force for help and the
police responded to their call. A single detective from the
Murder and Robbery Unit, Warrant Officer Reggie Shoulders, had
investigated the earlier murders, which started in 1986,
but he had since retired, leaving the cases unsolved.
In February 1994, a 14 man special task team dubbed the
Stration Strangler Squad was established.
The team was led by Lieutenant Johann Kutzy under the
supervision of the commander of the Cape Peninsula Murder and
Robbery Unit, Colonel Leonard Nipe.
The team operated from the yard of the Mitchell Plain police
station. 3 police caravans parked in the lawn served as
officers for the task team. The parade room of the police
station was converted into an operations room and its walls
were lined with maps and details about the victims, the crime
scenes and suspects. It was also fitted out with a
computer for processing incoming data.
The investigation became more focused and previously unheard
of. Support, such as forensic
psychologists, was seconded to the team.
These were luxuries that had not been available to shoulders
during the 1980s. The Strangler squad was
inundated with approximately 300 calls a day from the community,
all of them offering names of possible suspects.
Up to 2000 suspects were interviewed and interrogated
between February and April 1994. Thousands of criminal records
were perused and all the information in the earlier
dockets was followed up once more.
Detectives even interviewed convicted child abuses to get to
know more about their modus operandi.
A psychological profile of the suspect was drawn up by a police
psychologist. The profile described the
suspect as a mixed race man between the ages of 25 and 35
years old. He would be bilingual, a single
man, probably living with his family, and he would be a
homosexual. He was described as an
intelligent man who dressed very neatly, and he would probably be
a teacher, preacher, policeman or social worker who preferred
the company of children to that of adults.
He would be a local who lived in Mitchell's Plain and would
probably own a vehicle which he would often have resprayed in a
different color. It was likely that as a boy, the
suspect would have been sexually abused by a family member.
The profile was released to the community by the media.
The Strangler Squad used the profile to eliminate the
thousands of suspects who did not match it.
The detectives were under tremendous pressure.
The community wanted revenge and had to be restrained when they
turned violent. Politicians tried to use the
investigation as a tool in the 1994 election campaigns, and the
media watched the police's every move.
During the investigation. Detectives visited schools to
warn the children. They gave feedback to the
families and community leaders, and they attended the funerals
of the children, the diversity, other cases of child abuse to
the Child Protection Unit. They listened to the psychics,
and they even halted a robbery in progress, which happened to
take place in their presence. They patrolled the dunes looking
for more bodies and searched for and found missing children.
Those who were of duty on weekends brought in food for
their colleagues. The 14 men worked 24 hour shifts
for three months. The pace of the investigation
did not slap him for a moment. Meetings were held twice daily
to keep everyone fully briefed. Tragically, the station
stranglers undoing came at the cost of another life.
He's 22nd and final victim was 10 year old Alroy Van Royen in
the morning of Saturday, March 19th, 1994.
The call the detectives dreaded most came through.
Another body had been found at claim Flay bordering Mitchell's
plane. The detectives gathered at the
scene within minutes. There were no doubt that this
was another of The Stranglers victims.
The body of the young boy was lying face down with his hands
tied behind his back and his tracks and pants were tied
around his neck. The task team was devastated.
The crowd gathered and someone alerted the press who spotted
the members of the Strangler squad and drew the correct
conclusion. The body was soon identified as
that of 10 year old Alroy Van Royan from Strand, a town
further down the coast. Alroy's grandmother identified
him she had reportedly missing a week before his body was
discovered. Alroy was last seen alive in the
company of his cousin Rhino in and around a shopping center
situated near Strand train station on Friday, March 11th,
1994. According to Rhino, he and Alroy
were approached by a man who offered them money to help him
carry empty cord with boxes to the train station.
At first, Rhino agreed and took off with Alroy and the unknown
man. However, along the way Rauner's
unease in the company of the man triggered his sixth sense and he
ran off, leaving his cousin behind who was none the wiser.
Tragically, the 10 year old's body was found near the train
station. A witness, Mrs. Fuzia Hercules,
played a crucial role in not only aiding with the discovery
of Simons as the likely murder suspect, but also his conviction
for the murder of Alroy. After learning of Alroy's death,
Mrs. Hercules approached investigators with information
about the events that unfolded before her eyes.
The day Alroy went missing, Mrs. Hercules told investigators that
she took a good look at the man she saw speaking to Al Roy and
Rhino. She and Rhino worked with the
Strangler Task team to develop and identicate.
Court records later showed that Mrs. Hercules's attention to
detail was key in developing an identicate that led to the
arrest of Simons. It's written that she was so
obsessed with the suspect's description that only the 3rd
identicate satisfied her. Weeks went by without a solid
lead from the identical, which was widely released in
newspapers, then alerted by a nurse at a private psychiatric
clinic, the detectives pulled in a suspect on the evening of
Tuesday, April 12th, 1994, after having kept him under
observation for a few days. They warned him of his rights
and asked him to accompany them to the caravans at the police
station, which he did voluntarily.
The suspect was 27 year old Afsal Sarfaraz Norman Simons, an
unmarried school teacher who lived with his mother in
Mitchell's Plain. He was described by his friends
as a neatly dressed homosexual who owned a car which had
recently resprayed. Simons volunteered to write down
his life story and was given a pen and paper.
He said he was an inpatient at the clinic that he could not
return to the clinic that evening because the doors were
already locked. He did not want to return home
either. The detectives offered him one
of the caravans to sleep in. At noon on April 13th, 1994,
Lieutenant Kutzie formally arrested Simons in connection
with the Mitchell's plane cases, but not the claim Flake case.
On April 14th, 1994, an identity parade was held and Simons was
identified by Mrs. Hercules. Court records show that Mrs.
Hercules's attention to detail was yet again crucial in
disarming the defense at trial. When she spotted Simons in the
parade line, she specifically instructed investigators to make
him turn to the side. After carefully observing his
side profile, she remarked that he was possibly the man she saw
speaking to the two boys, but she did not leave her
contributions there. She recalled that Rhino had
revealed any statement that the man had instructed him and Alroy
to walk fast. Mrs. Hercules asked
investigators to instruct Simons to repeat the words.
When he did, she made him walk away with his back turned toward
her. Another man in the parade line
had caught her attention, but something about Simons sent
chills down her spine. After careful consideration and
noticing that the suspect had changed his hairstyle since she
last saw him, Mrs. Hercules rested on her assertion that the
man she saw speaking to Albo and Rhino was Simons.
Rhino said that he also recognized Simons, but was too
scared to point him out as the murderer of his cousin.
On April 15th, 1994, the detectives realized they did not
have enough evidence to charge Simons with the Mitchell's plane
cases and released him but immediately rearrested him in
connection with the Alroy case. Simon said that he wished to
make a confession and was taken to a magistrate to whom he
confessed to having killed children since 1986.
He did not elect to have an attorney present.
On Saturday, April 16th, 1994, Simons was taken to Falkenburg
Psychiatric Hospital to say psychiatrist since Colonel
Knight was concerned about his mental state.
When the Colonel interrogated Simons, he had claimed that in
killing the children he was acting on the orders of his
deceased brother. Simons admitted that he had been
sodomized by his older brother when he was the same age as his
victims. The psychiatrist found that
Simons was not suffering from mental illness, but that he had
a personality disorder. Simons then retracted his first
confession and claimed to be innocent.
He gave an alibi statement which was proved to be false.
During his trial on Sunday April 17th, 1994, Simons called Kutsi
and said that he wanted to make a second confession.
During the interrogation that day, he actually demonstrated to
the detectives how he had managed to kill two boys at the
same time. He was taken to another
magistrate that evening to make his second confession.
After the confession, he proceeded to point out all the
crime scenes to Lieutenant Mike Barkhasan.
This pointing out, took place during the early hours of the
morning of Monday, April 18th, 1994.
While the community of Mitchell's plane was still
asleep, the Station Strangler Squad followed Barkhasan's
vehicle at a distance to provide backup in case the community
woke up and harassed the suspect.
Later that morning, Simons was charged in court for the first
time. The rest of the subject did not
herald the end of the detective's duties.
They had to take statements and follow up on the background
details of the suspect, but mercifully, the pressure had
abated and they could focus their attention on only one man.
Months later, the Strangler squad was disbanded and one by
one they returned to their former stations, except for
Kutshi, Warrant Officer Dave de Villiers and Sergeant A J
Oliver, who had to prepare the case for trial for them.
The strain ended only a year later when the judge found
Simons guilty. The case was referred to the
Office of the Attorney General of the Western Cape.
At first, it was received negatively because of the lack
of evidence. In the initial cases, the bodies
were badly decomposed and had been lying in the sun between
the dunes for months. It is characteristic of
organized serial killers not to leave any evidence.
Eventually, senior state advocate Mike Stall and his
colleague Annette Dalanga volunteered to take on the case.
They decided not to charge Simons with the Mitchell's plane
cases, but with the kidnapping, indecent assault and murder of
Alroy von Royne. The trial began on Monday,
February 27th, 1995. Advocate Korth Lowe was
appointed by attorney Reuben Little to act as defense counsel
and Mr. Justice Fund, the Venter and two assessors, Mr. J Boyson
and Advocate C Williams, presided.
The trial was riddled with postponements and dragged on for
months. The accused was often late for
court because of a strike at the prison.
The detectives were grilled under cross examination.
Kutsie was in the witness box for four days during what became
a trial. Within a trial, the
admissibility of the confessions and Simons's tour of the crime
scenes were put to the test. The accused refused to testify.
He sat quietly during the trial, taking notes and giving
instructions to his defense counsel.
Sometimes he clicked his tongue irritably when he did not agree
with the testimony of the detectives.
He never claimed to have been abused by any of them.
In fact, in his confession, Simons expressed his remorse for
the murders and also thanked the detectives by name for arresting
him. Simons had realized that he
needed help, and from 1991 he booked himself into various
psychiatric clinics and institutions for treatment for
depression. His diagnosis was adjustment
disorder with depressive moods, personality disorders, and
depression. They seemed to have been an
informal correlation between the times he committed himself to
these institutions and the times of the murders.
During the trial, the defense tried to indicate that he
suffered from this associative personality disorder and
hypomania, but they failed to establish this.
Simons had problems with his ethnic, religious and sexual
identities, but he was an educated man who spoke 7
languages, including French. He liked classical music, he
loved his vocation as a teacher, and by all accounts he was good
at it. Disturbingly, his grade five
class adored him and he was respected by his colleagues.
Although one of his victims was a pupil from his school, the boy
was not in any of his classes. Simons was a volunteer at the
National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Reintegration
of Offenders or Micro, an organization that assists ex
convicts to adjust to society. He helped out in religious
groups and he had a few good friends.
He preferred the company of children and would often take
them swimming in the ocean and treat them to ice cream.
On the morning of March 11th, 1994, hours before he sodomized
and murdered Alref van Royen, Simons had his picture taken to
the list as a police reservist to help in the investigation of
the Station Strangler. Had it not been for his dark
secret, Simons would have been a respected member of the
Mitchell's plane community who made an active contribution to
the upliftment of his fellow men.
In his final confession, he wished all citizens a successful
first democratic election and asked for peace in South Africa.
The case was postponed to May 31st, 1995 for final argument.
The atmosphere in court was tense.
The victim's family, the mothers of other victims and residents
of Mitchell's plane, and friends and family of the accused sat
silently in the court gallery. Eventually, after months of
grueling testimonies and delays, Simons was found guilty of
kidnapping and killing Alroy. For the kidnapping charge,
Simons was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and 25 years for
murder. The sentences ran concurrently
the entire time Simons proclaimed his innocence and
even wrote to Elroy's grandmother denying his
involvement in the death of a beloved grandson, The mothers of
Jonathan Yusuf, Mario Freddy, Samuel Culver, Denver Yocubus,
Jeremy, Benjamin, Marcelino and Lino Fabian, Owen Donovan,
Jeremy Smith and Neville remain without closure on what happened
to their children, despite the existence of strong
circumstantial evidence linking Simons to the crimes.
In 1998, Simons's attempt to appeal his conviction was really
dismissed by a panel of judges who instead adjusted the 25 year
imprisonment to a life sentence. Following Simons's conviction,
the South African Police Service established the Investigative
Psychology Unit to deal mainly with serial killer cases.
To this day, Murder and Robbery Unit detectives are trained
annually by the Psychology Unit using resources collected during
the Station Stranglers investigation.
Simons, the accused but not convicted Station Strangler, was
released on parole on Thursday, July 20th, 2023 under strict
conditions. The Department of Correctional
Services assured Mitchell's Plain residents during a
community meeting that Simons would be subject to stringent
monitoring and restrictions upon his release.
According to Ronnie Biller, the Head of Community Corrections
for the Bowville area, Simons will be placed under 24 hour
house arrest. The parole conditions dictate
that he must not have any contact with children at an
official from the Department of Correctional Services will visit
his residence 8 times per month. Additionally, Simons will
require permission from the department to engage with the
media. The news of Simons's upcoming
release has reopened old wounds within the Mitchell's playing
community. Norman Yankees, the chairperson
of the Mitchell's Playing Community Policing Forum,
addressed residents during the community engagement, stressing
the need to give Simons an opportunity to reintegrate into
society and seek forgiveness for the community's past trauma.
Yankees acknowledged the pain caused by Simons, but also
emphasized the importance of providing a chance for
rehabilitation. Has Simons rehabilitated from
the demons that he claimed drove him to kill at least 22 children
with his recent parole? Was just a serve to the families
of the children whose murders remain unsolved.
This brings us to the end of our episode.
If you enjoyed our podcast, please consider giving us a star
rating. We appreciate all the feedback
and it helps us improve the quality of our podcast.
Also, if you have a story you would like us to investigate,
please send us an e-mail at info@swisherpost.co dot zede and
provide us with as much information as possible.
Please note that the story suggestions must be based in
South Africa.