DESPERATE SEARCH FOR MISSING GAY MAN
Amid the recent spate of brutal unsolved murders of gay men in Gauteng, a gay man from Bloemfontein has gone missing after he travelled to Johannesburg to meet an online date.
According to Thebe Mogamisi’s family, he met a man known only as Sipho online last year and exchanged pictures and contact details over the space of a few months.
Mogamisi, who was living with his aunt Dikeledi Mokatong in Bloemfontein, agreed to meet Sipho in Johannesburg and travelled to Gauteng on the 23rd of November, where he stayed with family.
He was last heard from on New Year’s Eve when he phoned his aunt, saying he was excited to be finally meeting Sipho. Since then, neither friends nor family have heard from Mogamisi.
According to The Star’s Shain Germaner, who is investigating the disappearance, Mogamisi’s Facebook profile is inactive and his phone goes straight to voice mail.
“I can’t sleep at night I’m so worried. Thebe is not the kind of person who would stay quiet for so long,” Mokatong told Germaner.
Anyone who has seen Thebe Mogamisi recently has been asked to contact Shain.Germaner@inl.co.za or the Park Road police station in Bloemfontein on (051) 507 6000
The latest murder in the recent spate of killing of gay men in Gauteng was of 39-year-old HIV/Aids activist and television presenter Jason Wessenaar, who was stabbed in the neck seven times in his Pretoria West home on 18 December 2011.
The murder spree 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, and Barney van Heerden (39) in Orange Grove, also in September 2011.
It is believed that at least some, if not all, of these men may have met their killers through online dating sites or cellphone chat rooms.
Well, if they exchanged details and PHOTOGRAPHS, it should be easy to track down the mysterious “Sipho”.
It’s quite likely the photos may have been fake, and Sipho is such a common name, it doesn’t really help.
What are the police doing about the murders???? Nothing not a word anywhere..
Unfortunately, the only response I could get out of the police’s provincial office was that ‘the murders are still being investigated’. However, after speaking to family’s of the victims, very little investigation is currently ongoing.
We need to stand more together, and get the police to do what is required by law
Good day Shain,
You know, Ive always been against the RICA laws. In fact, I hate them. I felt thats too much control on the side of the government I think I still feel that way. However the argument Ive heard from the government is that RICA will help combat crime. Great!
So, how about the police just simply accessing Thebe telephone records to check the people he who called on the last two days of the year? Or how about tracing all the people hes been in touch with over the past few months. The networks have been ordered to keep all the records for years. So, what are the police waiting for? You dont have to be genius Policeman to figure that one out.
The only way of being in touch with his online friend, beside the Internet, is via his cellphone. They had to have used it several times to communicate. Where has that led the police to?