Dr Candice Hansmeyer has spent her career speaking for the dead — first in South Africa’s chaotic mortuaries, now in Canada’s pristine labs.
In this deeply human episode of Profiler Africa, she joins Paul Llewellyn and Prof Gerard Labuschagne to unpack the realities of modern forensic pathology.

Together they explore:

• The stark contrast between South Africa’s crisis and Canada’s calm

• The emotional and ethical pressure of working where death never stops

• Why good science depends on good systems — and good people

It’s raw, intelligent, and unforgettable — a story of death, dignity, and discovery.

🎧 Listen on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts
📩 Questions or sponsorships: [email protected]
🌍 Website: plotshift.co.za

#ProfilerAfrica #ForensicPathology #CandiceHansmeyer #GerardLabuschagne #TrueCrime #SouthAfrica #ForensicScience #CrimePodcast #Autopsy #DeathInvestigation #SAPS #Justice #CriminalProfiling #RealCrimeStories #ForensicExperts

People disappear every day — but what happens when someone is kidnapped for ransom?

This week on Profiler Africa, forensic psychologist Gerard Labuschagne and host Paul Llewellyn go deep into the world of kidnap-for-ransom, joined by Vincent Swardt, a veteran crisis-response consultant who’s negotiated releases in DRC, Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.

Vincent reveals what really happens behind the scenes:
🔸 How kidnappers choose their victims🔸 What goes on during ransom negotiations🔸 Why professional hostage negotiators succeed where police can’t🔸 Why South Africa has become a kidnapping hotspot🔸 How victims survive — and what families must never do

It’s tense, revealing, and grounded in real-world experience — a masterclass in crisis psychology.

🎧 Listen now.
📩 Questions or sponsorships: [email protected]
🌍 Website: plotshift.co.za

#KidnapForRansom #HostageNegotiation #VincentSwardt #GerardLabuschagne #ProfilerAfrica #TrueCrimeSouthAfrica #CrisisResponse #ForensicPsychology #RealCrimeStories

Between 2017 and 2019, five women vanished in Masoyi, Mpumalanga. Their bodies were later found buried on the killer’s own property — a chilling signature of control and dominance.

In this episode, Gerard Labuschagne and Paul Llewellyn are joined by Colonel (Ret.) Kirsten Clark, former SAPS Investigative Psychologist & Criminal Behaviour Specialist, to dissect one of South Africa’s most disturbing serial murder cases.

They explore:
🔸 How the disappearances were linked and the series uncovered🔸 Why burial on home ground reveals the killer’s mindset🔸 Psychological insights from Kirsten’s profile of the accused🔸 How investigative psychology guided the Masoyi task team🔸 What this case says about rural serial offending in South Africa

It’s dark, methodical, and deeply human — a case study in the mind of a killer and the people who stop them.

🎧 Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
📩 Contact: [email protected]
🌍 Website: plotshift.co.za

#ProfilerAfrica #Masoyi #SerialKiller #GerardLabuschagne #KirstenClark #TrueCrime #SouthAfrica #ForensicPsychology #InvestigativePsychology #SAPS #CrimeDocumentary #CriminalProfiling

This week on Profiler Africa, Paul and Gerard Labuschagne unpack one of the strangest and most misunderstood areas in forensic psychology: autoerotic fatality.

These are accidental deaths that occur during solo sexual activity when methods used to heighten arousal — like asphyxiation, electrocution, or body wrapping — end in tragedy. Misunderstood, often staged by families, and sometimes mistaken for suicide or murder, these cases present unique challenges for investigators and forensic psychologists.

Gerard takes us inside this hidden phenomenon: what it is, how it happens, why it matters legally, and what myths need debunking.

In this episode:
• Definition & Scope — what autoerotic fatality is and how it differs from suicide.
• The Psychology — the role of asphyxophilia and oxygen deprivation in arousal.
• Methods & MO — from ligatures to electrocution and immersion.
• Legal Implications — why classification matters for families, insurers, and investigators.
• Myths vs Reality — who the victims really are.
• Identification Criteria — how investigators distinguish accidents from suicides or homicides.
• Staging & Misinterpretation — when scenes are altered to hide embarrassment.
• Case Studies — real examples that illustrate how these cases unfold.

📩 Questions or sponsorships: [email protected]
🌍 Website: plotshift.co.za

#ProfilerAfrica #AutoeroticFatality #GerardLabuschagne #ForensicPsychology #Profiler #CrimeExplained #TrustNobody

This week on Profiler Africa, Paul and Gerard Labuschagne unpack one of the strangest and most misunderstood areas in forensic psychology: autoerotic fatality.

These are accidental deaths that occur during solo sexual activity when methods used to heighten arousal — like asphyxiation, electrocution, or body wrapping — end in tragedy. Misunderstood, often staged by families, and sometimes mistaken for suicide or murder, these cases present unique challenges for investigators and forensic psychologists.

Gerard takes us inside this hidden phenomenon: what it is, how it happens, why it matters legally, and what myths need debunking.

In this episode:
• Definition & Scope — what autoerotic fatality is and how it differs from suicide.
• The Psychology — the role of asphyxophilia and oxygen deprivation in arousal.
• Methods & MO — from ligatures to electrocution and immersion.
• Legal Implications — why classification matters for families, insurers, and investigators.
• Myths vs Reality — who the victims really are.
• Identification Criteria — how investigators distinguish accidents from suicides or homicides.
• Staging & Misinterpretation — when scenes are altered to hide embarrassment.
• Case Studies — real examples that illustrate how these cases unfold.

📩 Questions or sponsorships: [email protected]
🌍 Website: plotshift.co.za

#ProfilerAfrica #AutoeroticFatality #GerardLabuschagne #ForensicPsychology #Profiler #CrimeExplained #TrustNobody

This week on Profiler Africa, Paul and Gerard Labuschagne are joined by Dr Nathan Brooks, a forensic psychologist and senior lecturer recognised internationally for his research on psychopathy and behavioural risk.

Dr Brooks has worked with government, law enforcement, and the private sector on threat assessment, lone-actor violence, and personality disorders, and is known for cutting through myths about psychopaths — not just in criminal settings but also in workplaces and everyday life.

In this episode, we look at psychopathy through a New Zealand lens. From lone-actor violence and radicalisation to the rise of “successful” or corporate psychopaths, Dr Brooks and Gerard unpack what makes someone dangerous, how risk is assessed, and whether we can ever truly predict violence before it happens.

• Psychopaths in New Zealand — how they show up in both crime and corporate life.
• Risk & Threat Assessment — tools used to spot danger before it strikes.
• Lone-Actor Violence — what NZ has learned since Christchurch, and what risks remain.
• Corporate Psychopaths — why some thrive in boardrooms rather than behind bars.
• Myths vs Reality — what people get wrong about psychopathy, and what the science actually shows.

📩 Questions or sponsorships: [email protected]
🌍 Website: plotshiftcrime.co.za

#ProfilerAfrica #Psychopathy #NewZealand #GerardLabuschagne #NathanBrooks #ForensicPsychology #ThreatAssessment #CorporatePsychopaths #ViolencePrevention #PlotShiftCrime

In this episode:

This week on Profiler Africa, South Africa's leading forensic psychologist Gerard Labuschagne unpacks one of Pretoria’s most disturbing serial murder cases — the case of Themba Vilakazi, known as the Railway Killer.

Between July and November 2005, three males — including an 11-year-old schoolboy — were brutally murdered along Pretoria’s railway lines and near the zoo. Victims were stabbed in the chest or neck, often left partially unclothed, and abandoned near the rail corridor. Years later, a 2012 rape case finally linked Vilakazi to the murders through DNA.

In this episode:
• The Crimes: How three murders in just months terrorised Pretoria.
• The Modus Operandi: Vilakazi’s pattern of targeting strangers and leaving bodies exposed.
• The Satanist Defence: Why he claimed voices from the “underworld” ordered the killings, and how the court exposed it as malingering.
• The DNA Link: How a later rape arrest cracked open the cold cases.
• Sentencing: Why experts testified he was a serial murderer who could never be rehabilitated.

This is a chilling story of delusion, manipulation, and cold-blooded violence — and a reminder of how DNA and persistence finally caught the Railway Killer.

📩 Questions or sponsorships: [email protected]
🌍 Website: plotshift.co.za

Gérard Labuschagne and Paul Vivare joined by world-renowned arson investigator Ed Nordskog to dissect the chilling case of Justin Caruso, a serial arsonist whose crimes spanned three US states.

Caruso’s fires weren’t random. He staged them to look accidental, inserted himself into investigations, and sought recognition as a “hero.” One blaze killed a 74-year-old man in Mesa, Arizona; another nearly claimed the life of an elderly woman just a week later.

Nordskog, who personally analysed the case, explains how investigators uncovered Caruso’s evolving M.O. andexposed the psychology driving his crimes. Gérard provides forensic insight into Hero Syndrome, fire-setter psychology, and why arson cases remain among the most complex to prosecute.

In this episode:
🔥The fatal Mesa fire and its investigation.
🔥How fires in Arizona, Texas, and Massachusetts were linked.
🔥The psychology of fire-setters and Hero Syndrome.
🔥Why this case became the IAAI’s International Case of the Year.

📩 Questions, comments, or sponsorships: [email protected]
🌍More: plotshift.co.za

For more information on guest Ed Nordskog visit: www.arsonprofiler.com

In January 2003, Cape Town was rocked by one of the most brutal mass murders in South African history. Inside a massage parlour called Sizzlers, ten men were bound, tortured, and executed. Nine died. One man — Quinton Taylor — miraculously survived.

This was the Sizzlers Massacre: a crime of staggering cruelty, officially recognised as a hate crime against the queer community. The killers, Adam Woest and Trevor Theys, claimed it was a robbery gone wrong — but the evidence revealed something far darker.

In this gripping episode of Profiler Africa, host Paul Llewellyn is joined by South Africa’s leading true crime voice, Nicole Engelbrecht — author of Sizzlers: The Hate Crime That Tore Sea Point Apart. Through Nicole’s meticulous research and rare survivor testimony from Quinton Taylor, we revisit that night, unpack the leader–follower dynamic behind the violence, and confront the uncomfortable questions the case still raises — especially as one of the killers now seeks parole.

🎧 Listen Now on Spotify & Apple Podcasts

📚 Read the Book: Sizzlers: The Hate Crime That Tore Sea Point Apart by Nicole Engelbrecht
🎙 Nicole’s Podcast: True Crime South Africa — available wherever you get your podcasts

🔗 Support Profiler Africa

• Patreon: patreon.com/profilerafrica

• Buy Me a Coffee: coff.ee/profiler

📲 Connect with Us

• Instagram, Facebook & X: @ProfilerAfrica

• Email: [email protected]

💡 Don’t miss an episode — follow & subscribe now, and remember… trust nobody.

This week on Profiler Africa, Paul Viv and Dr. Gerard Labuschagne sit down with Nicole Engelbrecht – South Africa’s leading true crime voice, creator of the chart-topping True Crime South Africa podcast, and author of multiple acclaimed books.

In Part 1 of this exclusive two-part interview, Nicole opens up about leaving corporate life to build a victim-first media platform, her journey as an author, and the ethics of telling stories of tragedy.

The discussion shifts to one of South Africa’s most haunting school attacks – the Morné Harmse “Samurai Sword” case – and his controversial release on parole. Nicole shares her in-depth research from Samurai Sword Murder, while Gerard unpacks the failures of risk assessment in South Africa’s parole system.

In this episode:

• Nicole’s journey into true crime and victim-focused storytelling

• The parole controversy surrounding Morné Harmse

• Systemic challenges in South Africa’s parole and justice system

• How the Sizzlers Massacre shaped Nicole’s advocacy

🎧 Part 2 next week: A deep dive into the Sizzlers Massacre.

For questions or sponsorships: [email protected]
Website: plotshift.co.za