Police held ‘Facebook rapist’ but didn’t know they had him

Caryn Dolley

POLICE pounced on the man suspected of being the “Facebook rapist” while he was kidnapping a woman near Joburg.

The man, who calls himself Thomas Bester, had managed to evade officers around the country for months until he was arrested in an Alberton house where the woman was being held.

But after the arrest, police did not realise he was one of their most wanted suspects until two days later, when Bester, who has at least 13 aliases, phoned an officer working on the case to say he had been arrested.

Members of the Hawks were expected to transport Bester from Alberton to Durban today.

Bester, 22, is suspected of dozens of crimes in Cape Town, Durban and Gauteng, including the murder of a model in Milnerton, Cape Town, last month and the rape of two models in Durban two months ago.

Yesterday, investigating officer Neville Eva said police had received information on Wednesday that Bester was in Joburg, but by the afternoon they had lost track of him.

On Friday, Bester phoned Anton Booysen, KwaZulu-Natal head of the Psychologically Motivated Crimes Unit, saying he had been arrested on Wednesday.

Eva said it was after this third call to Booysen that police realised the suspect arrested in Alberton was Bester.

“What he did in Alberton is vague at this stage, but he was caught in the act of kidnapping a woman,” he said.

Officers said he gave police a different name when taken into custody.

The Hawks, police and community organisations had been trying to track Bester for months via social media and the laptops and cellphones he used.

Eva said police were trying to correlate the cases involving Bester.

National police spokesman Vish Naidoo said at least 30 cases had been opened against Bester so far.

Yesterday, the mother of a woman Bester had allegedly raped and stabbed in Durban in August said she and her daughter were relieved.

“We’re over the moon. We’re so thankful to the Hawks and the private investigator for working around the clock. It’s still a long road ahead, but we’ve won round one.”

The mother had hired private investigator Nico Potgieter of Enforce Investigators, who, with his director Anthony Feuilherade, worked with police.

Police officers said they had a watertight case as evidence included fingerprints and traces of blood they said would link Bester to crime scenes.

Jean Viljoen, a guesthouse owner in Newlands, Cape Town, yesterday recalled how Bester and a young woman, who spoke isiZulu to each other, had stayed there for a week in May and left without paying. “I realised I’d been duped when they left with blankets, pillows, hairdryers and a remote and keys,” she said.

Viljoen said while he had signed in as Thomas Berter, he had signed a guestbook as Thomas Kelly Bester.

This was the name police said Bester had used on Facebook.

Bester’s Facebook account was deleted nine days ago.