Huisgenoot Ware Lewensdramas S1-10

The SAFTA-nominated documentary series Huisgenoot Ware Lewensdramas revisits the true-life stories that made the headlines, going behind the story with the people involved, talking to experts, and hearing from the journalists who originally broke the stories in one of SA’s oldest and best-loved publications.

This season looks at several cases where the prime suspect was a woman, including a story of obsession, poisoning and mutilation in Zeerust; the case of Anne-Marie Engelbrecht, who suffocated her abusive husband in their Krugersdorp flat in 2002; the mid-90s case that led to the first instance of a white woman being executed in Botswana; and the high-profile trial about the murder of Ralf Krebs, which was overshadowed by sensation in the late 1980s.

Also under the spotlight this season are the so-called “Flower Gang”; the senseless Bainskloof murders of Shawn Lategan and Maritza van der Merwe; and a family murder that shattered an upmarket Pretoria neighbourhood in the early 2000s.

The team revisits the story of the convicted Screwdriver Rapist of the 1970s, who was pronounced “cured” and released after 15 years in prison, only to attack again; examines the case of Phindile Joseph Ntshongwana, the former Blue Bull arrested for a series of gruesome axe murders; and delves into the case of the Station Strangler, which drew fresh outrage from Mitchells Plain families when convicted killer Norman Simons came up for parole in 2023.