An eighth gay man was murdered over the weekend in circumstances very similar to those of the other seven men killed in Gauteng over the last two years.
Rulov Senekal, a former ballet dancer and head of wardrobe at the Joburg Theatre for many years, was found bound and suffocated in his apartment in Braamfontein.
According to The Star’s Shain Germaner, his body was discovered on Sunday by a neighbour. There was no sign of forced entry.
It appears two men visited Senekal on Saturday evening at about 5 p.m. They signed in at security and left around 30 minutes later with Senekal’s laptop, and a black plastic bag. It is unclear if they were filmed by CCTV cameras in the building.
Acclaimed music director, arranger and orchestrator, Bryan Schimmel, said on Facebook that he was “shocked and devastated” at the news of Senekal’s death, echoing the sentiments of the city’s theatre community.
The murders of gay men began with Manolis Veloudos, who was killed in April 2010. He was followed by Jim Cathels in Berea in December 2010, Oscar O’Hara (33) in May 2011, a 47-year-old un-named landlord in Northcliff in August 2011, Siphiwe Selby Nhlapo (36) in Soweto in September 2011, Barney van Heerden (39) in Orange Grove, also in September 2011, and HIV/Aids activist and television presenter Jason Wessenaar (39) in his Pretoria West home in December 2011.
The murders remain unsolved and they share similarities in that the men were all gay, they were murdered in private homes, little or nothing was stolen and most of them were strangled. There is suspicion that at least some of the men may have met their attackers through online or cell phone dating services.
Despite the similarities in the crimes, the police have to-date rejected the theory that the same killer or killers are involved.
Pretoria-based LGBT health and well-being group OUT has expressed concern that gay men are being targeted and that “the authorities appear unwilling to acknowledge this”.
The group’s director, Dawie Nel, said in January: “There is a perception that there is a lack of interest in the cases, in part due to the sexual orientation of the victims”.
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its actually its nine gay men … i’ve discovered that another gay man was murdered in his home in cullian his name Victor also same situation as the rest, he was strangled and his car stolen Audi S3 sportback.
Hi Tumi – can you please send details of that if you have – or where we can get to rudirainbow@telkomsa .net?
This is getting out of hand now, the killers need to be caught.
y ppl cant just respect other ppls gender,y should i b hu u want me to be by force,y shoul i live th life tht u want me to live not mine.i hate the killer.
Surely Dating Buzz, Gaydar and others can help out here by checking IP addresses? This is getting serious.
This story is getting old…
The number of men being killed is miniscule relative to the number of men engaging in this dodgy behavior, it’s just the law of averages.
Gay men are easy targets and obviously criminals have caught on to this… Seriously it’s not rocket science.
How delightfully cynical. So people who want to have sexual relations with other people deserve to be killed? And because it’s such a small number of EIGHT men, should police just abandon these investigations altogether?
Go to hell Sam. Nobody deserves to be murdered or should be murdered, GOD gives life & He is the only one allowed to take life. Have a heart.
People complain every year about Pride marches, saying that they are nothing more than parties with little or no impact on general society. Well, I think this year we have a very good reason to march. Why not bring these muders to the general public’s attention by using our Pride marches to ask the government/saps to wake up and do something about this situation. We’ve become so complacent that we no longer remember how to be militant about our right to safety. Instead of making Pride a parade with an afterparty – why not bring back that “Protest” element that got us here in the first place.
how shocking, 8/9 murders, and still no one is a suspect.. who were these guys in contact with on the net before being killed. Surely there has to be someone in authority who can call up records, from the various providers, and if this has been done, and there are suspects out there, would it not be prudent to alert the general public who to look out for.
my thoughts go out to all who have lost their loved ones. in this horrible way..
If you wanna pick up black men, then you know you in for HIV or death or both. Do not cry afterwards!
There are also dangerous white rent boys…”reality ceck” dont be an idiot….What about the crazy white boys who have bareback sex parties…..there are many of those guys around!!!!!Also Mamba does nothing about the rent boy profiles on this site…I have informed them regularly.