[Gee!! This is “tough”… no parole for serial killers? Frankly… I find the whole discussion disgusting. Why didn’t our many serial killers end their miserable existences swinging on the end of a rope? The reality is though… serial killers will be able to get out on parole in time to come… wait and see… Jan]

Johannesburg – Serial killers would not be let out of jail early on parole, the country’s top investigator of these crimes, Superintendent Piet Byleveld, said on Wednesday.

Although many convicts sentenced to life imprisonment were considered for parole after 20 years, this was not the case if their trial judge had stipulated otherwise at sentencing.

He might be just a policeman, but even he, as the investigating officer, had a say about the type of person the killer was.

“I promise you he [a serial killer] won’t be let out of jail,” Byleveld told the Johannesburg Press Club, meeting at Marks Park sports club.

Byleveld has investigated the recent Leigh Matthews and Tanya Flowerday killings, among many other cases.

Devoted to high profile and serial crime investigations since 1992, he is thought by some to be the best serial crime solver in the world.

In the Kranskop serial killings of 1996, the killer begged him to testify before the court on his behalf, Byleveld told the Press Club.

“… He begged me, he pleaded with me to tell the judge he didn’t want to be let out of prison ever, because he would do it again.”

Dispatched to jail for his crimes, the killer later sent for Byleveld to thank him for what he had done.

“A serial killer – you let him out and he’s going to do it again, again and again,” Byleveld said.

In the Nasrec serial killings near Johannesburg, the suspect he caught was convicted of 16 murders in 2002 and sentenced to life plus 780 years in prison.

Haven’t lost a case since 1996

The hammer killer who terrorised tailors, the elderly and young couples in Johannesburg in 1997, was convicted of 27 murders and 122 other charges and was sentenced to 2 214 years in jail.

It was the very judge who decided this case, who stepped in to put paid to media reports that the killer was going to be let out in 25 years, said Byleveld. “The judge was very upset,” he added.

Other sentences imposed on convicts caught by Byleveld, include seven and eight life terms plus 700 and 800 years for the two men convicted of the Bruma Lake attacks. Several other cases have yet to be finalised.

“Give me a tough case. Don’t tell me: ‘You’re not going to solve it’. I’ve lost before, but not since 1996,” said Byleveld, admitting that a lot of his success could be put down to identifying with the killer.

“I have to feel like him. I have to think like him.”

He emphasised too the importance of continuing the investigation even after an arrest had been made, of constantly liaising with the prosecutor in each case, and of always staying in touch with the families of the victims and keeping them up to date on any developments.

Source: News24.Com
URL: http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/New…/p>