S.African serial killer gets 13 life sentences

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa's "sugarcane killer" has received the maximum 13 life sentences for the murder of 13 women.

Thozamile Taki, 36, was convicted Dec. 23 on 13 counts of murder and robbery. Natasha Ramkisson, regional spokeswoman for the National Prosecuting Authority, says besides the life sentences he received Wednesday, he was also sentenced to 208 years for the robbery charges.

Taki lured women into sugarcane fields in South Africa's eastern KwaZulu-Natal province under the pretenses of offering employment. Doctors could not determine how he killed the women, aged 22 to 35, because their bodies had decomposed in the fields when they were found in 2007.

This nation of about 50 million people has one of the world's highest crime rates, with about 50 murders per day.