South African Runner Found Dead In Kempton Park After Going Out for a Run

Elizabeth Moselakgomo went out for an afternoon run in Rhodesfield, east of Johannesburg, last Wednesday and did not come back. On Monday her family identified her at the mortuary in Germiston, and police are now telling women around Kempton Park to avoid walking or running alone in isolated areas.

Moselakgomo, 38, ran with Team Vitality, which said she had recently finished the Wanderers half-marathon in Johannesburg, the Sowetan reported. That race was run on Aug. 23. She also ran with Waterfall City Athletics Club, one of the clubs that ran in tribute to her on Tuesday, Jacaranda FM reported. IOL reported that she managed the Festival Mall shopping centre and sang in her church choir, and that she went out to run on Sept. 9, though the Sowetan has put the date a day later.

Her 8-year-old daughter was the one who told the family that her mother was not home by 6:30 p.m. “I still take my hat off to that young lady,” Moselakgomo’s uncle, Lieutenant Colonel Andries Matlaila, told Jacaranda FM of the child. Of Moselakgomo he said: “I would call her the glue of the family.”

Six Deaths Under Investigation

Her body was found on Saturday behind a hotel in Rhodesfield, in sports clothing and partly undressed, the Sowetan reported. Police have not said publicly how she died.

She is the fourth of six women found dead around Kempton Park since mid-July. The first was discovered near the R21 highway on July 15, strangled with cable ties; a man arrested two days later in connection with that case remains in custody, EWN reported. A 32-year-old was found near the same road on Aug. 24, two more women on Sept. 10 and Sept. 14, and a sixth beside a road in KwaThema, Springs, on Tuesday morning. IOL reported that police described all six as left out in the open, most only partly dressed, with four of the women sexually assaulted.

A task team ordered by acting national commissioner Lieutenant General Puleng Dimpane, and led by Gauteng deputy provincial commissioner Major General Mbuso Khumalo, is drawing on detectives from the Murder and Robbery Unit and the Investigative Psychology Unit. Police have not confirmed that the deaths are the work of one person, national spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said, though “the similarities are sufficiently concerning for the police to issue a public warning and intensify investigations.”

Clubs in Two Countries Ran for Her

Athletics South Africa said women should be able to take part in sport without fearing for their safety. “As the athletics family, we are deeply saddened by the loss of Elizabeth,” acting chief executive Terrence Magogodela said in a statement carried by eNCA. Team Vitality asked the running community and the public to keep her family and her daughter in their thoughts.

Waterfall City Athletics Club and Run Alex Athletics Club held tribute runs and walks on Tuesday, and Running With Sole Athletics Club asked for more police on the streets, street lights that work and safer routes. Running, the club said, “should represent freedom, health, community and joy, not fear.” In Eswatini, members of TZD Sports Club ran 10K for her the same morning. “Every woman deserves to run without looking over her shoulder,” the runner Hlengiwe Bhembe told the Times of Eswatini.

Gawie van Jaarsveld of Kempton Road Runners told TimesLIVE that most of them are out the door by 4 a.m., in the dark, and that the rule now is to “stay together and don’t leave somebody behind.” Runners in the area are buying pepper spray and joining larger groups, and Graham Block of Run Zone Athletics Club said his club can send a security vehicle out along the routes it uses.

South Africa classified gender-based violence and femicide a national disaster on Nov. 21, 2025, under the Disaster Management Act. Police recorded 569 women murdered in the country between April and June, and UN Women has put the rate at which South African women are killed at five times the global average. When adidas surveyed 9,000 runners in 2023, in nine countries that did not include South Africa, 92 percent of the women said they worried about their safety on a run, a fear that now supports its own market in safety apps.

Matlaila said the family is waiting for police to release her body. “Upon the completion of the postmortem and other processes that the SAPS is undergoing, they are going to release the body to us,” he said.