Jun 13, 2026 · 49 min · 12 segments
This is a Rewind release of an episode originally published in May 2020. The episode has been re-recorded and updated with new and additional information. Sipho Dube was the embodiment of everything…
Nicole EngelbrechtHostMtlumayo, near Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal, is a mountainous region of the province.
It's a relatively rural area, occupied largely by people who have grown up there.
Livestock farming is popular in the area, which is about 40 kilometres outside of Ladysmith.
In a community that is rather closed off from the rest of the world, petty criminals are often dealt with by the community.
For many years, such communities did not trust police, and that aversion did not immediately disappear when apartheid officially ended.
In 2003, though, Nkrumahio would be forced to recognise that their brand of community justice didn't work on everyone, and sometimes a troubled child was far more dangerous than they appeared.
On that day in 2003, police drove into town and started asking questions about a previous resident.
He was a man who had fled the town two years before, and the community and what was left of his family had hoped that the young man had gone on to live a better life in Johannesburg.
The aunt of one Sipo Dube was one of the last remaining members of his family left there.
She recalled being shocked when the police told her what her nephew was accused of doing.
As she started to tell the tale of Sipo Dube's childhood, though, for police and profilers, the pieces all started to fall into place.
We don't know what day, and seemingly neither does he, because his birth was never registered.
The government of South Africa was never advised that a baby called Sipo Dube had entered the world.
He had no birth certificate or identity book, and his fingerprints never entered the system.
Sipo Dube was a ghost, but he had been very real to the people of Mtlumayo.
His aunt told police that the boy had been difficult to deal with from a very young age.
He committed his first known crime at the age of seven when he stole a neighbour's radio.
He allegedly told the victims that they were, quote, full of shit and should mind their own business, end quote.
When he was 10 years old, he stole money from the local church altar and his mother kicked him out of her house, sending him to live with his grandmother nearby.
Mtlumayo, near Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal, is a mountainous region of the province.
It's a relatively rural area, occupied largely by people who have grown up there.
Livestock farming is popular in the area, which is about 40 kilometres outside of Ladysmith.
In a community that is rather closed off from the rest of the world, petty criminals are often dealt with by the community.
For many years, such communities did not trust police, and that aversion did not immediately disappear when apartheid officially ended.
In 2003, though, Nkrumahio would be forced to recognise that their brand of community justice didn't work on everyone, and sometimes a troubled child was far more dangerous than they appeared.
On that day in 2003, police drove into town and started asking questions about a previous resident.
He was a man who had fled the town two years before, and the community and what was left of his family had hoped that the young man had gone on to live a better life in Johannesburg.
The aunt of one Sipo Dube was one of the last remaining members of his family left there.
She recalled being shocked when the police told her what her nephew was accused of doing.
As she started to tell the tale of Sipo Dube's childhood, though, for police and profilers, the pieces all started to fall into place.
We don't know what day, and seemingly neither does he, because his birth was never registered.
The government of South Africa was never advised that a baby called Sipo Dube had entered the world.
He had no birth certificate or identity book, and his fingerprints never entered the system.
Sipo Dube was a ghost, but he had been very real to the people of Mtlumayo.
His aunt told police that the boy had been difficult to deal with from a very young age.
He committed his first known crime at the age of seven when he stole a neighbour's radio.
He allegedly told the victims that they were, quote, full of shit and should mind their own business, end quote.
When he was 10 years old, he stole money from the local church altar and his mother kicked him out of her house, sending him to live with his grandmother nearby.
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