The 1985–1986 Muti Murder Panic in South Africa

Record summary

South African reporting in the 1980s used “muti murder” or “medicine murder” to describe alleged killings connected to body-part medicine and witchcraft. The category is a research lead rather than a single verified case: individual police dockets, inquests, trials, and newspaper reports must be identified. It matters for comparison because rumor, traditional medicine, racialized criminal narratives, and genuine violent crime became entangled. Researchers should preserve both forensic findings and the possibility that some reported cases were hoaxes, misclassification, or retrospective sensationalism.