I realized that there was something wrong. Something wasn’t right. >> I sat up in bed and there was this little guy in my bedroom. I am so emotional on a Mother’s Day because my children nearly didn’t have a mother. He took my entire life. [Music] South Africa, Johannesburg, also known as Egoli or Josie.
Johannesburg is South Africa’s largest city. Built on the discovery of gold in the late 1800s, Johannesburg has continued to lure people from across borders in search of wealth. It’s a diverse, multicultural city, and a melting pot of Africa. Johannesburg is extreme, enormously wealthy, and desperately poor. And it’s for these reasons that thousands of people converge on the city of gold every year, most to seek out a fortune and some to steal one.
The dark side of Johannesburg is reflected in the high crime statistics. So when a series of breakins, violent assaults, and robberies took place over a period of 7 years, it failed to make headline news. The attacks took place in three provinces and began in 1999. None of the crimes were linked. But Tracy Goldblat will never forget.
She was a single mom at her parents’ home with her kids on December 2nd, 2002. >> We’d gone to sleep and when I woke up, Brad had woken up as well, I think, with a bit of a commotion going on there. And I just patted him on the leg and I said, “Boy, don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fine. um just relax.
Everything will be okay. Well, he was saying to me that um he’s going to rape me and that I should move over in the bed. And when I moved over slightly, um he started undoing his pants and I kicked him. But at that stage, I mean, already a shot had gone off. Then he pulled me out of the bed, pushed me into the passage, and I pushed him from the gate into the little dining room area.
And as he turned around, I’d locked the gate and he started to scream. He’s going, “Hey, hey, hey, you can’t do that.” And when I’d locked the gate, he started shooting and I closed the passage door as well. And I stood against the door and I thought, “I’m really not feeling very well.” And when I was the burglar gets away with his assault on Tracy, he leaves no trail.
He is spurred on to commit yet another violent crime, it takes him 6 months to choose his next victim. He breaks into the house of a 19year-old woman and rapes her. Still feeling invincible 10 days later, the suspect gets a fright when two officers begin to follow him. Driving in an upmarket suburb, a high-speed chase ensues.
Shots fired, but the officers have no idea who they’re chasing. The suspect drives over 200 km per hour and jumps a traffic light, eventually colliding with a lamp post. He’s unheard and makes a run for it. He continues firing at the police. The suspect is shot and wounded. He gives them a false name, Koa. This is a scam he has almost perfected.
He is searched and found in possession of a gun. He’s also found with meat sausages laced with poison. Aldicarb is an agricultural poison. It’s fatal when fed to animals. He’s taken into custody. Despite the arrest and evidence of Aldicarb, the suspect is granted bail within days. He slips through their fingers and is on the run again.
10 months later on April 24th, 2004, the suspect is again arrested. This time with housebreaking tools. True to form, he gives a false name, appears before the Ptorian magistrate’s court, is granted bail of 500 rand, and walks out. A second failed arrest. This is just the beginning of a cat and mouse game.
This dangerous criminal begins to play. The quiet treeline streets of an upmarket Johannesburg suburb become the next hunting ground for the brazen criminal. Rodri Charles Pringle still lives in the house in which he was attacked. His dogs were poisoned with Aldiarb. >> The incident happened. It was about 3:30 in the morning.
Um, so clearly he’d been around for a while because the barking happened about half past 1 or two. He came through that window. He then helped himself to a laptop in the study. I sat up bolt up in bed and there was this little guy in my bedroom and I used bad language asked him.
I asked him what he thought he was doing in my bedroom at that time of the day and get the hell out of there thinking I might scare him. Well, you clearly don’t scare this guy because he never moved a muscle except lift the gun. And so I sort of put my hand out. I don’t know what you expect to stop a bullet with a hand, but you do. Turned sort of half away from him and said, “All right, all right, all right.
Take what you want and go.” And the next thing happened, he pulled the trigger. The bullet went in here just on my collarbone. Um, and and because I turned somewhat, it it ricocheted off that into my into my shoulder. He’d already got the keys to the car in his hand at that point and he jumped in the car.
There was a Labrador and a Jack Russell. They were poisoned so comprehensively they didn’t even have time to swallow the sausages that the poison was in. It seems he’s untouchable. The upmark northern suburbs of Johannesburg are a soft target. As his confidence grows, so does the brutality of his crimes. He breaks an entrance, then rapes his victims.
In just 3 months, the suspect has raped three women. Two of them in just two days. One, a 21-year-old ballet dancer. And then on December 17th, 2004, the suspect moves 50 km north of Johannesburg to the capital city of South Africa, Ptoria. Here he brutally attacks Heidi. >> I realized that there was something wrong. Something wasn’t right.
And I think I must have been woken up by by noises coming from my office. And um I could see a light moving It was all strange. I couldn’t put it together. I switched on my bedside lamp and the next minute the door opened and there was a man beeping around the door and I immediately shouted like a crazy person and I said, “What are you doing in my house? Get out.
” His response was, “I’ll shoot you.” And that was quite a chilling thing because the next minute I realized, okay, he might be peeping around my bedroom door, but who else is out there? And he was shining a torch in my eyes, which was virtually blinding me. I couldn’t I couldn’t really see him too well.
And he made me sit on the on the couch. I said to him, “Look, whatever you tell me to do, I will do. I won’t shout again. You are in control. I won’t do anything. And he came back with a haird dryer and he tried my legs together. Then he took a wire from the loudspeaker that was behind my back and tied my hands above my head to the couch. That was the first time that I realiz to open my legs.
Then I realized he was going to I started pleading. I said to him, you know, take whatever you like. You’ve got everything of value. I’ve got nothing else of value in this house, but leave me. Leave me. It’s not necessary for you to rap me. And then he took the steak knife and he cut the jeans from the side on both sides. He cut it and he pulled it off.
I think what was going through my mind mostly there was there were no physical sensations at at that particular point I was in a very spiritual place. Guess in the next minute there was a car a sound of a car approaching very quiet street that I was living in and he got a fright and he got up and he went outside went to have a look at what this car was doing there and it was a car of a security company.
He asked me how to open the gate. I said to Molly, “Just push it open.” And that’s when I heard he reversed my car out of the driveway, stopped briefly, and then roared away. As the rape cases begin to pile up, the dockets land on the desk of Colonel Andre Nidan and Captain Arnold Bostra of the South African Police Sex Crimes Unit.
And then we realized that there’s a a serial offender on the loose in Jobbook. And by the fourth scene, they identified him on fingerprints on a bulb. >> One of our very uh talented fingerprint people actually had a similar fingerprint etched in his mind and he managed to pick up a fingerprint at one of our scenes that he remembers from other scenes.
>> They slowly piece the story together. The same modus operandi in all the rape cases. The man who says his name is Koa is now wanted by the police. When he saw this fingerprint, he knew he saw it somewhere else. And this is how we identified Anyas Marty first. But at that stage, the name that was linked with a fingerprint was a Mr.
Cora and not Anas Mart. So we were chasing this Mr. Kai around and eventually through investigation and with help of our colleagues we managed to find out that this Mr. Koi is actually a false uh uh passport. His real name is Ananise Mate and he’s from Mosambique. Speaking to informants, examining cell phone calls and SIM card data, they crack the investigation.
Police are tipped off. The South African Police Service pounce on Ananise Mate while he sleeps in his hideout. He is detained in a high-risk cell at the Johannesburg Police Station, but not for long. Two months later, on April 2nd, 2005, Mate successfully pulls off his first escape from a cell.
He slips through the fingers of the police for the third time. >> The big frustration came when he escaped from our own cells under our own control. which is specifically built to house these kind of criminals. >> He somehow managed to break the bars. >> Mr. Marty was a very lucky man on a few occasions. He didn’t get injured.
He managed to get away. It was an embarrassment for us. that this person managed to escape out of our high-risk cells. Uh there was a lot of pressure placed on us to track him down and arrest him. The team, which was a very big team, it consisted of specialists from our task force and dog unit work day and night.
We worked 9 months sleeping on the back of bakies in the bushes, working with informers who told us he will be traveling this route, that kind of thing. By this stage, he has managed to gather a small fortune, stealing and selling cars and motorbikes. He even stolen. >> The investigation and hunt for Mate goes cold. Limpopo Province, Northern South Africa.
Home to scenic bushfelt and game reserves. It’s the town of Tabazimi, a fast growing ecoourism area and also a sleepy mining town. Its tight-knit community enjoy a relatively crime-free existence until now. for each. Trouble that would terrify this town. A sinister character stalks at night. At first, he waits in a garden until the house lights go off.
He enters the house while the family is asleep and quietly removes the door lock and handles with a screwdriver. Yeah. I was woken up at about 2:00 by the dogs barking. I peeped through the window and I couldn’t see anything. 15 minutes later again woke up and then I put the lights on and then I saw these meatballs
lying on my stoop and I immediately realized that somebody was trying to poison my dog. I had two bulls uh of which one died um on on site here and uh that night I took the other one to the veterinarian. We later discovered that this particular person was looking for vehicles, particular 4×4 vehicles.
The next day when they did the lifting of the fingerprints, he was identified as trying to jump over the wall at our home, but the dogs must have scared him off and he went back. Next day, we also found cans. We prepared the bully beef. We spiked it with the poison just on our neighbors side of the fence. Pressure mounts.
The police have nothing to go on. With no identicquate and no fingerprints, residents take it upon themselves to form a neighborhood watch. patrolling at night in an attempt to catch the criminal. California [Music] to defense. Tabi is left reeling. The crimes bear
the hallmark of a seasoned criminal and a nice mate has succeeded in 28 and killing dogs in just three days and he’s vanished again. By the end of October 2005, 3 months after he hits Tabazimi, the South African Police Service declare Ananise Mate their number one most wanted criminal. They release his identity.
Mate has now been on the run for 6 years. >> And that was my first encounter with him was on the headline of the Star newspaper. It was an absolute shock. After a tip off, police finally come face to face with their man outside a hotel. They wait for Anaise. They’re told he’s staying there. >> We went up to the room where he stayed and where the co-acused of he stayed.
We searched the room. We found hijacked vehicles, keys inside the room. Captain Buenra and one of our colleagues at that stage, Captain Federan was downstairs being the lookout. >> They had a description of a car Mosen Beacon Camray coming over the hill and as he pulled closer it slowed down to see what’s happening and I noticed Marty sitting in the left passenger side and he didn’t see me standing next to the pole and I stepped right in front of the car and I managed to get him by the collar. I just got a frantic call saying
somebody’s very tired and saying we’ve got him. Come and help us. >> And I pulled him out and he fell on the floor and Colonel Farvid jumped on him and we uh managed to subdue him then arrest him again. >> It was a massive fight. Mr. Mart is quite a tough uh character. Um Captain Bunstro is a big guy.
Fonfiran is a big guy. And they really had their hands full to uh to to to contain him. Taking no chances, police lock mate behind the iron gates of South Africa’s notorious CMAX highse security prison in Pritoria, once home to death row. Designed to house South Africa’s most dangerous hardened felons and serial killers.
Between April and November 2006, Mate tries escaping more than three times from this prison. On the second occasion, wardens are summoned to Mate’s cell. The window is damaged. He’s moved immediately to a more secure cell. It makes little difference. November 18th, 2006, 7 years after he began his crime spree, the most wanted criminal escapes again.
>> My phone rang just after 12 at night and uh it was the head of the prison informed me. He says, “Are you the investigation for of M?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Well, the man has escaped.” >> The team of us went out to CAX. We went to investigate and um yeah, we were quite shocked. >> It makes national news.
The headlines scream impossible. He’s dubbed Houdini. >> But the government spins their own story in an attempt to cover up an embarrassing situation. The Department of Correctional Services tells reporters through the cell window. >> South Africa’s Houdini is on the move again and no one knows how he did it. Or do they? >> So when they said the guy escaped through a window, I know in Operator Central Prison, there’s no way unless you take the entire frame of the window.
>> The Minister of Correctional Services, Mr. N Balo I mean came out publicly saying that um there is this criminal you know he escaped use a Vaseline and all of that. I mean all those things he told the public >> out we went out to Simax to to see him and we allowed the media to uh identify him as well if they can.
>> Journalists scrambled to get the details. They’re skeptical about the Vaseline story. The allegations were apparently made that his family had paid 80,000 rand over to somebody. >> That 80,000 for me confirmed that anything was possible because of he had people around him who needed him because of he knew how to to to get things in and out of the of the country.
All that we can do at that stage is we didn’t know exactly where he was, but we could patrol main arteries etc. looking for him and we actually managed to find him on three or four occasions. He just slipped past us. For 7 years, he continues to give police the slip. It’s a massive manhunt. Roadblocks are set up on the outskirts of Johannesburg.
Time and time again, Mate evades capture. Sometimes they even spot him. and then he’s gone. >> We called him off the suburban area where he went in and we searched there for about 3 hours. We found nothing. >> There’s a name that is known about I mean he’s known you know about in in Mozambique is known as the red and when when I try to to ask questions around it I mean the only answer that I got from the communities there is that I mean a red you’ll never you know pin a red down attention.
>> Dominique Matlango is following the story. He’s a journalist at a South African Sunday newspaper. >> The real story still needs to be told. Who is this guy? >> Now he’s assigned to travel across the border from South Africa to Mosmbique to unearth the truth about a man who no one sees but many know of. >> The more I probed, I discovered that I’m dealing with a very shady character.
I mean at some point he will operate with a gang at some point he will operate alone. I didn’t want just to believe what the police were telling me. Hence the decision to say fine we’ll profile him in terms of information that we have in South Africa but we need to go back to where he comes from just to check who is this guy.
That’s when then I started to discover that he’s not an ordinary criminal. Shyishai is a small seaside town north of the Mozambique capital, Maputo. Dominique has been told Anaise Mate grew up in a village close by. He sets out to find the family. He needs some background to find out what makes Anaise Mate tick.
I realized that for me to operate freely, I had to just go in to the police station in the area. Then I went there to try and check that and then the station commander, we spoke for about two to three hours. He was open up until I started to ask the first question that um I’m told that um some of the police officers in the area have benefited from an Ana Martin and that they’ve always protected him.
Are there any cases you know that you know of? And then he the whole conversation changed you know he started asking me questions you know um who are you you don’t have any any right to come and ask these questions you know uh this is not South Africa I mean as we drove in into that village it’s in Shai it’s not far from the main road I mean if you know Mosmbique is that it’s got this one national road and then we drove down the road and then I was surprised that this guy is building a mansion I mean if it is completed.
When I counted, he had about six bathrooms that were blended. You know, a number of rooms. I mean, it’s also a huge huge yard. >> A grand display of wealth in a rural village. The house anise mate is building. So, as we drove in there, there was his mother and the two wives and the kids. I mean, they welcomed us and then I introduced myself.
Then, then they open up. I mean, they told me his background. >> Mate went to school, played soccer, and was the eldest of four siblings. While his father worked on the mines in Johannesburg, 800 km away. His mother turned to alcohol. There was little money and his brothers needed food and clothing. Anise was forced to leave school.
His friend Thomas Sito shared his childhood with Mate. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. [Music] [Music] [Music] Felistra is one of three wives Mate married. She was pregnant when he left
Mozambique. That was in 2005. Since then, she hasn’t seen him. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. between 1995 and his escape from CAMAX.
Anise mate took long road trips from his hometown in Mosamb beek to the city of Johannesburg 800 km away. He returns to the village in Mosamb beek often with brand new motorbikes, 4×4 trucks, and quad bikes. It’s obvious they’re stolen. No one questions him. Anise mate has been on the run for seven years.
In that time, police have caught him four times. But each time, the slippery criminal with a knack of disappearing has evaded prison. 15 days after Anaise Mate’s sensational escape from Ptoria’s Cmax prison, Cameron Mikkel John is woken by footsteps in her Joberg home. >> At 10 to 6, I woke up and he was probably in the house from anytime after 5 till about4 6.
He came through the door, obviously heard that I’d gotten up and he was armed and obviously I panicked and screamed. And he said to me that I had to keep quiet and get back into the bed. And he basically said to me and my daughter, who just started to wake up, that I must please keep quiet and put our heads down and and he left. Probably about 10 15 minutes, I could hear my car start and go down the drive.
Hi. And our car has been >> in the last 10 minutes. >> It was on a Monday morning. We received a phone call from the control room stating there was uh a girl taken from a house robbery. Big boy was my driver for the day and chased out. We were not aware really chasing a big boy. [Music] We proceeded there.
They told us the helicopter is airborne already. It was the time of the morning. Pick our traffic. >> Tambbisa is home to approximately 400,000 people. It’s a massive sprawling township on the outskirts of Johannesburg. Winding roads, informal settlements, and tightly clustered houses make it almost impossible to track someone.
The chopper actually got the vehicle visually. When we got the vehicle visually, it was just pulling off the road. >> When he saw us turning towards him, then he started running. >> Stop. >> When he started running, he had like a a black bag. At one stage, you could see I’m close to him.
Then he took the bag that he had on his shoulder. Then he throw it onto his shirt. >> The smallish he had orange shirt. He actually took off his shirt at one stage just to get away from the chopper. The chopper normally they see the color of the shirt of the guy and that’s how they identify that. >> Then we told the chopper guys we can’t see the guy and they told us no this guy ran into that house so he should be somewhere there.
It’s early morning and Joseph has lost sight of him. But the noise wakes the family inside the house that the chopper pilot has identified. So we start searching through the house. We were looking there for like 20 minutes. We couldn’t find him. We said to the chopper, “No, the guy is not here.” For more than 20 minutes, Ananise Mate stands undetected behind a room divider.
>> He was half naked. His t-shirt was off. He only had uh his trousers on and his t-shirt that he was wearing was rolled onto his left hand uh side. >> I actually grabbed him and we searched him and we took him outside. >> Then I told Pete B, “No, let’s rather walk down to the park through the main road.
” Pete said, “No, the helicopter said it’s easy for us to go through the fences.” Just before we jumped the fence, the guy turned around and he stabbed me here. It was like blood oozing. My right hand side eye was closed. I couldn’t see a thing. And as I was climbing over the fence, I heard the chopper screaming on the radio. The guys running away.
As I looked back, I saw Joseph chasing the suspect. The first turn he took, I saw only saw blood in his [ __ ] It was blood all over his face, all over his shirt. And when I got there, I saw this big catch under his eye. >> And I ordered him. I gave him an order to stop. He didn’t want to stop. Then I pulled out my phone and I shot it once.
>> What we figured out that under his [ __ ] he had a big screw. They wanted to move him to Cambisa Hospital, but we got some information. And there were people already waiting there with firearms trying to help him to escape again. >> Then they had to reroute to Pritoria. My director Dale, he called me and said, “Yeah, you’ve arrested Ananas Martin.
” >> It was my first day back from holiday. I actually went to Mauritius to go and catch a maron, which didn’t happen. But at the end of the day, I caught a bigger fish called Ananas Martin. >> Mate is shot three times and is arrested. He had spent 15 days on the run. [Music] >> Under a heavy police escort, Matei is transported to the Johannesburg Supreme Court.
surrounded by nine policemen armed with automatic rifles. >> The transport of him was a nightmare to get him to and from court. >> Was also very demanding in terms of having to dedicate a whole lot of human resources to that lengthy court case. We definitely didn’t want him to escape again.
We had to transport him from Pritoria where we had a special cell built for him. He’s charged with 64 criminal counts, including multiple counts of housebreaking with intent to steal, as well as rape, attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, escaping from custody, and other violent crimes. [Music] David Motibbe and Shabnam Singh are appointed to represent the state in what becomes a lengthy and complicated trial.
I started to hear about Ananya mati then in the news I would say within few weeks after receiving the matter >> and I learned that there’s a serious case that I was given to do. >> When I arrived I was um allocated to advocate mativa to assist with to assist with the matter. >> It was like uh any other case.
The only difference was that it had many dockets many charges. I would say that he carried the biggest burden of this matter because he did the majority of the presentation of the state’s case. I had to consult with the victims of the sexual assault. We ensured first that they had been taken to court for court preparation to familiarize themselves with the um court atmosphere to make them more comfortable.
>> So when I got to court, I looked at him and yes, he’s a small little man. He he looked almost pathetic and I knew that he was pure evil. >> It’s not something that people come through every day in their lives or experience every day in their lives. You think of the most unpleasant sexual experience that you had and you put um this victim in a court full of strangers, it’s very difficult for them to relay their experiences.
>> Yes. Emotionally, I think it did a lot of damage. But physically, I came out of it with bruises around my my wrists. That was that was all. So Heidi had a breakdown and contemplated ending it all. She lost everything. She lost her business, her home, and finally had to send her son to live with her family.
>> We had called over 200 witnesses in this matter. It was extremely traumatic to put the victims through that experience again. and um he showed no remorse when they were testifying. >> The type of sarcasm that they had to endure and the type of of of emotional breakdown that he subjected them to was I think was very traumatic for them.
>> He was like here in front of me looking at me and every time I I was testifying he was looking at me laughing. He sits there with his family behind him, sniggering and chatting. >> When I went to court, I went down the stairs and he was sitting at the bottom and I turned to look at him because I needed to close that chapter.
I forgave him because I know for a fact that forgiveness is a very liberating thing. It’s a very liberating thing and it cuts ties between yourself and that person and I certainly didn’t want to have any ties to him. >> Mate claims he can’t speak English. Leontina de Almeida is brought in to interpret.
She thinks his character is unnerving. >> He didn’t come across as a baddie. He came across as this softspoken person who very small, you know, bold. It’s hard to believe that he did the things that he did. He he actually told me that he was the only person that managed to >> evidence against Anaise Mate is overwhelming. A packed gallery listens intently as details of his escape play out.
the side of the bed. >> He had also used a piece of steel about that size, bent it into the shape of an S. And if you look at it from the photographs that were shown, pieces of clothing were attached to this S shape, and he could use it as a hook to throw it into the window and then climb out. Judge Geraldine Borches is told by a psychologist that Mate ran away from home to join Fimmo, freedom fighters who fought for liberation in Mosmbique in the 1980s.
That’s the story Mate has maintained all along. >> During the trial, we had a report which uh I would say to a certain extent confirmed that rumor. >> Mr. Mart’s military background is still highly disputed. >> The mother told me that at some point when Anyas grew up, he simply woke out. >> Yes, he may have been trained as a soldier, but soldiers are are trained to protect and serve, not to do the things that he did.
>> The psychologist also says Mate suffers from antisocial personality disorder and that he shouldn’t be given a life sentence. Contrary to what the victims feel, the psychologist argues Mate is remorseful and will rehabilitate himself. But Mate refuses to testify. The court doesn’t get to see his so-called remorse.
After a marathon trial lasting three years with over 200 witnesses, finally the verdict. The judge finds Anise Mate guilty. South Africa’s Houdini is sentenced to an effective 54 years in prison. rems >> and gives the thumbs up. >> He just came across as a very intelligent individual. Probably the most complex case that I’ve worked on.
>> I found him to be an extremely charming man. >> He come across as charming guy, friendly, well spoken, softspoken. I think he’s he’s uh uh more intelligent than the average person. I >> mean, he came across as someone who who’s so innocent, you know, uh people are just creating the stories around him.
I mean, when when you sit down with him, he can convince you. He can tell you that no, it’s not me. You know, he’s he’s that kind of a character, you know, he he he wins you over, you know, with his conversation. And if you if you fall for that, you’re in for a surprise. Coxad Super Maximum Prison is where Mate will spend the next 54 years of his life.
Supposedly South Africa’s most secure prison. A few still believe Mate could pull off his third Houdini escape. We actually flew him down there with unplanned flight plans etc. That facility goes to the extent where they don’t even allow personal contact between the prisoners and the person. Now I believe he’s uh well locked up. [Music] >> It’ll take some time but he’ll come out.
>> He’s done it before. He may do it again. He said when he left the prison, he would have a party and I would be invited. [Music]
