East London – An Eastern Cape serial killer has said he is sorry for murdering 20 people, many of whom were raped.

On Tuesday Bulelani Mabhayi, 39, plead guilty to all 36 charges levelled against him, which include rape and murder, the Daily Dispatch reported.

If convicted, Mabhayi will be the worst serial killer South Africa has seen in over 15 years.

Mabhayi’s home village Tholeni, in Butterworth, became known as South Africa’s “village of death” under his reign of terror.

“Even to the people of Tholeni and to the citizens of South Africa, I would like to say I apologise and I am very sorry for what I did,” he told the Eastern Cape High Court sitting in Butterworth.

But Mabhayi admitted that if he hadn’t been arrested in August 2012, he would still be raping and killing.

Mabhayi said he killed his victims because they knew him and would be able to identify him, he added.

When asked if one of his victims, who was little more than a year old, could identify him, Mabhayi told the court he killed the child because he was “driven by an evil spirit”.

Mabhayi said he was still of value to society “because I have learnt from this experience and that what I was doing was not right and unacceptable”.

 But he also agreed that he did not have any respect for human life. 

News24