The Apartheid Killer — bringing a dark chapter of SA’s history into the light

South African journalist Isa Jacobson, director and producer for the documentary, 'The Apartheid Killer'. (Photo: Supplied / BBC World Service)

By Tamsin Metelerkamp

14 Aug 2024

Three decades after the end of apartheid there are still stories of suffering that remain unheard, families with unanswered questions, and violent crimes that have gone unpunished. In the documentary The Apartheid Killer, director Isa Jacobson strives to shed light on one of the murkier criminal cases that emerged from this era.

‘Maybe the public want me to apologise. But I’m not going to make a mockery of my own beliefs, just to please them. I’ve got no remorse inside because I don’t feel that I was wrong.”

These are the words of Louis van Schoor in the documentary, The Apartheid Killer. The figure captured on camera is that of an old man – grey-haired and confined to a wheelchair due to the double amputation after suffering a heart attack. He doesn’t have the look of a dangerous vigilante.

But in the 1980s, while working as a security guard in apartheid-era East London, Van Schoor shot and killed at least 39 people, the youngest of whom was 12 years old. All of his victims were black. He long maintained that every person he killed was a criminal who he’d caught breaking into the white-owned businesses he was contracted to guard.

The Apartheid Killer is the culmination of four years of investigative work by South African journalist and director Isa Jacobson, the BBC World Service’s investigative unit, BBC Africa Eye and the podcast World of Secrets. It probes Van Schoor’s actions during apartheid, which he claims were supported by police officers from the local Cambridge Police Station, and explores the far-reaching consequences felt by the families of those he killed.

Unanswered questions

The documentary shows the complicity of the apartheid system and police culture in allowing Van Schoor to kill with impunity. After each shooting, he would report the incident to the police, usually officers from Cambridge Police Station.

“In many instances we know the police would arrive very soon after the killing. They would take a quick look and essentially rubber-stamp these as justifiable homicide… No real, genuine investigation was ever performed,” says Jacobson.

Although Van Schoor was eventually arrested in 1991, he was convicted of only seven murders and released after 12 years in prison. Many of his killings are still classified as justifiable homicides.

Speaking to Daily Maverick about the making of the documentary, Jacobson says the BBC insisted it should include accounts from family members of Van Schoor’s victims.

“That really resonated for me; that truly did inspire me to keep going,” she says.

However, it proved challenging to track down documents and people more than three decades after the killings. Jacobson found that many of the case files about Van Schoor’s shootings had gone missing, along with the names of witnesses and victims from these incidents. In the end, she says, progress came down to a combination of “dogged persistence” and “sheer luck”.

Louis van Schoor in the documentary, The Apartheid Killer. (Photo: Supplied / BBC World Service)

When she found Marlene Mvumbi, whose brother Edward Soenies was murdered by Van Schoor in 1987, it was a turning point in her work. She was also able to connect with Raymond Soenies, Edward’s son, who was six years old at the time his father was killed.

“The other miraculous thing is the fact that Marlene and Raymond were willing to be part of this. It’s one thing to find someone, and then it’s another thing to have them be so willing to partake and to scratch at those old wounds – to reopen those wounds and be willing to share it with the world. It’s incredibly brave. I was very grateful to them,” says Jacobson.

Old wounds

For two years after Edward Soenies was killed, his family – including his young son – had no idea what had happened to him. He simply disappeared. By the time they found out about his death, he had been buried in an unmarked grave by authorities. There he would remain for almost 40 years, as his family didn’t have the resources to move his body to their ancestral graveyard.

Mvumbi says that when Jacobson contacted her, it was the first time someone had approached the family with the intention of seeking answers and providing information about her brother’s death.

“We had given up on being able to find answers about what actually happened. Why Van Schoor wasn’t sentenced for a long time; why he got paroled early. We were never informed of anything. Now, having [Jacobson] come in with all this information and understanding of our pain, that was a great thing for us,” Mvumbi tells Daily Maverick.

South African journalist Isa Jacobson, director and producer of the documentary, The Apartheid Killer. (Photo: Supplied / BBC World Service)

Marlene Mvumbi, whose brother Edward Soenies was murdered by Louis Van Schoor in the 1980s, features in the documentary, The Apartheid Killer. (Photo: Supplied / BBC World Service)

When Mvumbi saw the completed documentary, she was “honoured and humbled”, as she felt that it gave the family a sense of closure.

“We felt we were heard now, and that was everything we hoped for. It also gave me renewed trust that if you don’t lose hope, maybe something will happen eventually,” she explains.

During the making of the documentary the filmmakers helped Mvumbi and her family arrange Edward Soenies’s exhumation and reburial in their ancestral graveyard.

Jacobson says: “If I had not been doing a story which focused on Edward and his family, which focused on trying to secure a dignified burial for Edward in his ancestral graveyard, I don’t know if I could have continued. There had to be that side [of the story] that was decent and good.”

Justice delayed

The grief and pain shown by Edward Soenies’s family throughout the documentary stands in sharp contrast to interviews with Van Schoor, where he repeatedly denies any wrongdoing. At one point he describes his activities as a security guard as “hunting, but a different species”.

“Every night is a new night. It’s a new adventure,” he remembers. “You work out a pattern for your different crimes. And that was exciting.”

Since the documentary’s release, Jacobson says she has been approached by lawyers offering to look over Van Schoor’s case again, and spoken with influential figures in the transitional justice space about how to take the matter forward. Her hope is that more family members of Van Schoor’s victims will come forward and share their stories.

Louis van Schoor in The Apartheid Killer. (Photo: Supplied / BBC World Service)

“We wanted so desperately for there to be genuine compensation or reparations for the victims. The more we dug into the cases, the more we saw the complicity of the police, and the more that we saw how much injustice there had been. And so the documentary was an incredible experience – but it also feels like it’s opening up something else and that is not finished,” she says.

Reflecting on the message she would like viewers to take away from the film, she says people should know that it’s not acceptable to claim they were “just following orders”.

South African journalist Isa Jacobson, director and producer of The Apartheid Killer. (Photo: Supplied / BBC World Service)

“We all have a moral compass and that should be sacrosanct. But on the other hand, we also do need to keep hearing these stories. This idea that apartheid’s over and we shouldn’t be bringing this up anymore is just plainly wrong… It’s very clear from Marlene’s experience, and from the experience that I’ve had working with her and with Raymond, that these things don’t go away. We’ve got to keep looking and hearing the difficult truths in order to heal.”

Van Schoor died on 25 July at 73 due to complications from sepsis in his leg, according to a report by the BBC.

The Apartheid Killer can be viewed on the BBC News Africa YouTube channel. A weekly podcast covering the story is available on Season 3 of World of Secrets, available on BBC Sounds and other podcasting platforms. DM

Categories:

Tags:

DM is much better if you are signed in...

South Africa

Old wounds

Justice delayed