The journalists who initially broke the Thabo Bester story will finally get a chance to narrate the story in a new Showmax documentary, Tracking Thabo Bester.
GroundUp was the media outlet that broke the news about the convicted murderer and rapist being alive and living it up in Sandton.
GroundUp, complete with a picture of Bester shopping at Woolworths in Sandton City, exposed his death to have been a sham.
The shopping picture was taken in June 2022, a month after the Department of Correctional Services announced Bester’s death in his prison cell, which it said was engulfed by fire.
The most wanted fugitives
Following the exposure, Bester and his partner, Dr Nandipha Magudumana, became the most wanted fugitives in the country. Bester was also the most searched person in South Africa on Google in 2023.
Magudumana, now a murder co-accused, was just in fourth place, as the whole country obsessed over Bestermania and the stormy tale of love, murder, deception, and corruption.
The Daily Maverick named the pair “SA Villain of the Year”.
Local true-crime pioneers IdeaCandy are producing Tracking Thabo Bester.
The production company is behind the Safta-winning Devilsdorp, the Sanlam Group Financial Journalist of the Year-winning Steinheist, and the Showmax true-crime record breaker Rosemary’s Hitlist.
The four-part investigation series screens in two halves on Showmax, on March 15 and 22.
The first episode follows GroundUp journalists Marecia Damons and Daniel Steyn as they investigate an anonymous tip-off that the burnt body at Mangaung Correctional Centre may not have been Bester’s.
Journalist of the Year award winners
Damons and Steyn went on to win the prestigious Nat Nakasa Award and shared the Vodacom Journalist of the Year award for breaking the jaw-dropping story and its biggest plot twists.
They also co-wrote the bestselling book The Thabo Bester Story: The Facebook Rapist, the Celebrity Doctor, and the Escape from Cell 35.
Subsequent episodes look at why Bester was called the Facebook rapist, how a celebrity doctor fell for a convicted criminal and left her children behind to go on the run with him until they were caught in Tanzania, and who really died in Cell 35.
Interviews include prisoners and prison warders at Mangaung Correctional Centre; the family of Katlego Bereng Mpholo, whose body was found in cell 35; Nkosinathi Sekeleni, Nandipha’s older brother; and former South African Police Service head profiler, Dr Gérard Labuschagne, who interviewed Bester after his 2012 arrest for rape and murder.
The documentary also shows the media and social media reactions to the story.
Dawie de Villiers’ story
Having earned three SAFTA nominations in the past two years for her work, Nikki Comninos made her Showmax Original debut as a director on December’s Convict Conma.
Convict Conma looked at Dawie de Villiers, another South African running a media business from inside jail, where he was also serving time for rape.
“We tend to discuss Thabo Bester like it’s an isolated case, but it’s clearly not. Bester has been depicted as some kind of anomaly for being able to run a business while incarcerated.
“But so did Dawie de Villiers, also a convicted rapist who lured his victims online at a completely different prison.
“This raises questions about what is happening with the South African prison system,” said Conma.
The trial of Bester, Magudumana, and their co-accused, was supposed to begin in February. It will now start in the Free State High Court on June 5 2024.
