One day in March 1959. in the British Central Africa protectorate of Nyasaland, harmless-looking Elard Chipandale, 31, tied a handful of magic twigs about his waist, donned a coat of tree bark, and turned himself into a crocodile. He lay in wait by the bank of the Mwanza River for an eight-year-old girl named Mponda
Simenti. When Mponda ambled by on the way to fetch water for her family, Elard the Crocodile dragged her into the river, broke her arm with his lashing tail, and finished her off with his finger-long teeth.
This was Elard's own mystical version of what some...
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