Elifasi Msomi ( ? - 1956 )

Beginning in August 1953 and continuing for nearly two years, Elifasi Msomi killed 15 men, women, and children under the alleged control of the Tokoloshe, the South African equivalent of the Bogeyman. A witch doctor in Richmond, Natal, Msomi turned lycanthrope when he deemed it a requierment of his magic to sacrifice the flesh and blood of humans. To prove the power of the Tokoloshe, Msomi summond his mistress, then raped and stabbed a young girl to death in her presence. Rather than being impresses by his by his spiritual guidance, the woman ran to the straght to the police, who immediately arrested Msomi. But the Tokoloshe had been impressed by Msomi's obedience to its demands, and the entity, in Msomi's veiw, enabled him to escape from police custody.

In April 1955, after the stabbing deaths of at least 5 children were attributed to his bloody handiwork, Msomi was once again arrested and placed in custody. But almost as soos as he was behind bars, he had made his escape due to the power of the Tokoloshe.

A month later,he was recaptured with some of his victims' property in his possession and the same bloody knife that had by now claimed the lives of 15 men, women, and children. Msomi did not hesitate to show the police where he had disposed of some bodies that had remained undiscoverd, for, after all, he was not to blame. The Tokoloshe did it.

The court, however, veiwed it diffrently and in september 1955 sentenced Elifasi Msomi to death for the murders. The local populace was so terrified that the Tokoloshe would one again free the witch doctor and allow him to go on killing that the prison authorities permitted a deputation of chiefs and elders to veiw Msomi's corpse after his appointment with the hangman at Pretria Central Prison on February 10, 1956.