The South African Satanic Church is offering a R10,000 reward for any information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of the so-called Manenberg cat killer.
At least 39 cats have been found mutilated in the area in recent weeks and residents don’t know who is responsible. Some have labelled the killings Satanic but the organisation has distanced the religion from the slaughter of cats in the Cape Town community.
The Satanic Church said that it was appalled by the ongoing brutal killings of cats in Manenberg. The organisation’s Riaan Swiegelaar said that they did not condone the abuse of animals and none of their rituals required the slaughter of any living being.
“This goes against Satanism. The safety and protection of animals are of utmost importance to us, especially as the Satanic philosophy calls for animals to be held in the highest regard,” Swiegelaar said.
He said that the public still sadly associated rituals involving animals with satanism due to the misconception spread through what was considered the Satanic Panic in the 1980s and 1990s.
Post mortems have revealed that some of the animals were severely beaten before they were sliced open with a sharp blade and disemboweled, while others had parts of their ribcages, hearts and lungs ripped out.