The Krugersdorp Killers

In Krugersdorp, South Africa 11 people were viciously murdered between 2012 and 2016 by a religious group calling themselves Electus Per Deus (Chosen by God). Their arrests sparked an investigation into one of the strangest cases in South African history which would ultimately reveal the depths of human depravity.

The story of the Krugersdorp Killers starts in 2012, although as with all killers, the true tale behind their murderous intent was formed long before that. This case is complex with many people involved so I’ll start off by giving you a broad overview of events and then get into the details after that.

The story takes place in a town called Krugersdorp in Gauteng, South Africa. Krugersdorp was founded in 1887 as a town to support the gold mining community which had sprung up in the area known as the Witwatersrand at that time. Today it is home to over 140 000 residents, has a booming city centre and some of the best schools in Gauteng.

At the end of 2007 Marinda Steyn, who was 41 at the time attended a church meeting and was introduced to Cecilia Steyn who was just 24. Despite having the same surname, they are not related. The pair was introduced by Ria Grunewald who was a prominent member of the church group they all attended. As part of the broad overview I will say that Ria and Cecilia’s friendship ended badly but Marinda had by then become very close to Cecilia and their friendship endured. Marinda had introduced her children, Le Roux 10 at the time and Marcel, 7 to Cecilia as well. Their friendship circle would grow to include Zak and Mikeila Valentine and eventually John Barnard. These six people (I exclude Mikeila Valentine as she would eventually become one of their victims) would form a bond which has been described as everything from a business enterprise to a cult to a family. They would go on to commit 11 murders between 2012 and 2016 and commit acts of terrorism, fraud and racketeering. Now that you have a general idea of the people and circumstances we are going to cover, let’s get into a deeper dive of the characters and events which would unfold.

I believe that there are many parts of this story that we do not know about. I believe that there are other members of Electus Per Deus out there who may not have been directly involved in the crimes but have a tale to tell. Electus per Deus was not a cult, in my opinion, nor can we class any of its members as serial killers. They were simply six people that all had the same dark intention present within them which remained dormant until they found themselves in the right company. I’m sure there’s a good chance that none of them could have imagined they would have ended up in this situation.

There’s also a very good chance that if they had not found themselves within such a group, they may never have committed such offences. There is a psychiatric term called Folie a deux which roughly translates as the madness of two. It is the presumption that, in certain circumstances, delusions and behaviour can be created by the pairing of two very specific people, which, in the absence of that pairing would likely never have occurred. Perhaps this situation is a case of the Madness of Six.

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