CAPE TOWN - There has been over 160 cases of serial killers in South Africa since the 1950s, according to the head of the police's Investigative Psychology Section, Brigadier Gerard Labuschagne.

He was speaking on the final day of the 35th annual Crime Stoppers International Conference in Cape Town on Wednesday.

Labuschagne says 65 percent of serial killer victims in South Africa have been female, while all the serial killers have been male.

He explained that 40 percent of victims were unemployed, indicative of a common modus operandi by the killers to make false job offers.

"Very few are sex workers because you don't have to go through that trouble of luring a sex worker with you. It's not so easy to get a random stranger in the streets."

Labuschagne made reference to Johannes De Jager who was this year convicted of murdering two teenagers in Cape Town, including an 18-year-old sex worker.

(Edited by Gadeeja Abbas)