Devilsdorp is one of the greatest true crime shows you’ll ever see. The events are so fantastical and outlandish, as are the antics of the conspirators who killed 11 people over four years. The killings, spanning from 2012 to 2016, all happened in Krugersdorp, the mining town to the west of Johannesburg named after Paul Kruger. The title is a clever play on the town’s name and the particular brand of religious manipulation used by a cunning woman, Cecilia Steyn.
She claims to be a 42nd-generational witch, whatever that means, and is fighting to escape from the Satanic church, whatever that means. To this end, she forms her own cult, called Electus Per Deus (Chosen by God). Her pawns are seemingly God-fearing do-gooders, who end up killing 11 innocent people – and quite a few of them for insurance payouts – as well as staging the death of one of the groupies.
Steyn may portray herself as being involved in some life-and-death spiritual conflict for the eternal soul, but she struck me as a highly manipulative narcissist who has masterfully woven enough of a myth to get six other people to do her bidding. This includes killing people. Steyn thinks she is mysterious and powerful and falls for her own con.
What is particularly interesting is the weird crew that congregates around her, Marinda Steyn and her two children Le Roux and Marcel, Zak Valentine and his wife Mikaela, and John Barnard. They are vastly different and have varying economic means – Valentine, for instance, is a successful salesman who drives a two-seater Mercedes sports car. But he conspires with Steyn to kill his own wife, Mikaela.
True crime is the right description.
Watch Devilsdorp on Showmax for R19/week – click here to learn more
That the events took place in Krugersdorp has spawned derisive comments from Joburgers, who marvel at how this happened so close to the economic centre of the country. Had a woman claimed to be a 42nd-generational witch fighting for her soul against the devil in Hillbrow or Rosebank, nobody would have formed a cult around her. Because it happened in Krugersdorp, she got her own cult and TV show.
What Devilsdorp does well is explain the strangeness of Steyn and her cult figures, and show how they lost their critical thinking and sense of right and wrong. The hour-long four-part documentary is directed by David Enright and narrated by journalist Jana Marx, who authored The Krugersdorp Cult Killings: Inside Cecilia Steyn’s Reign of Terror.
The intrigue doesn’t end, it seems, with another fantastical twist in this dark tale. One of the main characters in the documentary is Marizka Coetzer, a journalist who covered the sensational trial and wrote a book called Outcast. She falls in love with the young man, Le Roux Steyn, in a weirdly truth-is-stranger-than-fiction way you just can’t make up.
Devilsdorp is a compelling, and disturbing, viewing. Nothing is quite as gripping as a true crime story, is it?
