DR. MICKI PISTORIUS

Powerful Princesses and Policial Poisonings

Where the motive of the 17th-century Spana Prosecution poisoners was to rid themselves of their abusive husbands, there exists another class of poisoners – those who use poison for political advancement. Long before the Renaissance trio of Thofiania d’Adamo, Giullia Tofana and Gironima Spana concocted the arsenic-based Aqua Tofana, Rome’s most famous poisoner was Locusta, […]

A Renegade Gang of Roman Renaissance Female Serial Killers?

Ironically the word ‘arsenic’ originates from Greek folk etymology as ‘arsenikon’, a neuter form of the Greek adjective ‘arsenikos’ meaning “male”, or “virile” and over centuries it was arsenic that women have been using to eliminate the males in their lives. In the mid 1600’s a trio of Renaissance Italian woman with a keen sense […]

The Sisterhood of Arsenic and Old Lace – Lethal Old Ladies

A champion for children’s rights and an activist for socio-economic reform, whose own father was committed to a debtor’s prison, was Victorian era author and literary genius, Charles John Huffam Dickens. In one of his lesser-known novels, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, Dickens raises the theme of an elderly man, Old Martin, employing […]

Angels of Death- Tipping the Scales of Themis

Themis is the Greek goddess of justice, divine order, law, and custom and her symbol is the Scales of Justice. Her Roman equivalent is Justitia. She personifies divine law – “that which is put in place”. Judges were often referred to as “themistopóloi” – the servants of Themis. Many defence lawyers in Angel-of-Death nursing […]

Mask of Tragedy – Munchausen by Proxy

Baron Hieronymus Karl Friedrich Freiherr von Münchhausen would entertain the 18th-century Germain aristocrats with stories about his escapades during the1735-1739 Russian-Turkish War, exaggerating to such an extent in 1785 it inspired the German author Rudolf Erich Raspe to write a book, titled Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, with a […]

Authors’ Debate: Unmasking Jack the Ripper – James Maybrick or Walter Sickert?

Nov 28 2024

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Authors’ Debate: Unmasking Jack the Ripper – James Maybrick or Walter Sickert?

Two authors, Patricia Cornwall and Shirley Harrison, tried to unmask Jack the Ripper. Ms Harrison’s candidate is James Maybrick and Ms Cornwall’s candidate is Walter Sickert, whom she also linked to the Thames Torso Murders, a contemporary of Jack’s Whitechapel murders in London in the late 1800’s. A person can be profiled by analysing the […]

by Dr. Micki Pistorius

Killer-cops: The Pangaman and the Human Hunter – Double-faced Janus

Nov 21 2024

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Killer-cops: The Pangaman and the Human Hunter – Double-faced Janus

Divided by 30 years, two brutal men held a city and a town ransom during a reign of terror. One went undetected by the police for two years yet hid in plain sight, whilst the other committed murder for three years in full sight of the police. One was a low-life White man, whilst the […]

by Dr. Micki Pistorius

Killer-Cop, Unmasking Serial Killer Kobus Geldenhuys Invisible Identity

Nov 14 2024

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Killer-Cop, Unmasking Serial Killer Kobus Geldenhuys Invisible Identity

South African serial killer and rapist Kobus Geldenhuys’ criminal career began by stealing money from his mother’s purse when he was a 10-year-old child. Geldenhuys developed no psychological inhibitors to prevent the “thing” as he called it from escalating from stealing his mother’s money to burglary, to rape and finally to murder. Shocking as it […]

by Dr. Micki Pistorius

Killer-Cops, When Heroes Become Villains: Uyselen Nel killed his family in cold-blood

Nov 7 2024

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Killer-Cops, When Heroes Become Villains: Uyselen Nel killed his family in cold-blood

In 1996 South African police sergeant Uyselen Nel killed his wife and two toddler sons in cold-blood, much like the Greek hero committed familicide when in a fit of rage and madness he killed his wife and sons with arrows. Apollo demanded Hercules to master several tribulations before his spirit could be cleansed of the […]

by Dr. Micki Pistorius

Serial Killer Brydone Brandt, is he Hercules or Cerberus?

Oct 16 2024

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Serial Killer Brydone Brandt, is he Hercules or Cerberus?

Some time after Stewart Wilken, the cannibal serial killer of South Africa was imprisoned, I received a call from St Albans Correctional Facility summoning me since Stewart was out of control in his cell and he called for me. While I was at St Albans, my colleague, detective Derick Norsworthy, who had secured the confession […]

by Dr. Micki Pistorius

The Science of Decay at Body Farms – Forensic Taphonomy in the Flesh

Oct 9 2024

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The Science of Decay at Body Farms – Forensic Taphonomy in the Flesh

In the early 19th century, two serial killers, William Burke and William Hare, set up an illustrious business by killing 16 people in Edinburgh, selling the bodies to anatomists since there was a shortage of cadavers. With Edinburgh being a leading European centre of anatomical study, Scottish law prescribed that corpses used for medical research […]

by Dr. Micki Pistorius

Sep 18 2024

Articles

True Crime: The Gorgoneion of Medusa

According to Greek mythology, Medusa, a Gorgon, was a beautiful maiden who was raped by the Greek god Poseidon, in a temple of the goddess Athena. Athena punished Medusa by turning her hair into snakes and anyone looking at her was petrified and turned into stone. Theseus, a Greek hero, managed to trick Medusa by […]

by Dr. Micki Pistorius

High Treason: The Boeremag – Ordinary Men

Sep 5 2024

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High Treason: The Boeremag – Ordinary Men

In October 2002, Soweto, a township designated predominantly for Black people during the Apartheid era, located south-west of Johannesburg, South Africa, was rocked as a volley of bombs exploded, one-by-one over several hours, killing a woman. A month before the explosions on 16 September 2002, Detective Superintendent Tollie Vreugdenburg, former Commander of the Bushveld Murder […]

by Karin Mitchell