South Africa cop killed six for insurance payouts: court

JOHANNESBURG: A policewoman worked with a hitman to murder her boyfriend and five relatives in an blood-curdling scheme to pocket insurance claims, a South African court ruled on Friday.

Gruesome details revealed during the trial of Rosemary Ndlovu, 46, captivated even a nation numbed by its staggering murder rate. She systematically signed up relatives for life and funeral insurance, then organized the killings of her cousin, sister, boyfriend, niece, nephew, and another relative between 2012 and 2017, the court found.

"Ndlovu perpetrated these crimes as there were similar patterns and facts relating to the deaths of all the deceased," the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said in a statement. Ndlovu cashed in on an estimated 1.4 million rand ($95,000, 81,000 euros) from her bloody deeds, and was arrested before she could complete plots against her mother and another sibling, they said.

With chilling foreplanning, Ndlovu mostly hired hitmen to ambush her victims and either shoot or bludgeon them to death, the court found. But she personally took care of her sister, poisoning her tea and then strangling her when that failed to work.