It was known as a house of horrors — 227 Malherbe Street in Pretoria, where paedophile and serial killer Gert van Rooyen lived with his accomplice, Joey Haarhoff.
It was the scene of untold suffering for at least six girls murdered by Van Rooyen, but now neighbours want the abandoned property to be used for good.
Capital Park Residents and Ratepayers Association chair Mike Burt said the community wanted to take over the property and turn it into a place of safety with the help of sponsors and donors.
So far the association has started maintaining the property, erected a fence and built a memorial for the six girls who died there, and whose bodies have never been found.
Resident Lizette Stoltz, who gives talks to abused women, said there was a need for an emergency place of safety for abused women, and DA MP Madeleine Hicklin has asked public works minister Patricia de Lille to cede the property to the ratepayers.
LISTEN | Turning a house of horror into a house of hope
Public works confirmed to the Sunday Times that the property has not been used since it came into its possession in September 2000, “because there has been no request received from any government department to use the property”.
A departmental “options analysis” in 2016 said if no government department wanted the property it should be offered to a non-governmental organisation for the establishment of a child-protection unit.
In a written response last month, De Lille said the Malherbe Street property had been offered to the department of social development and if it did not want it, public works may consider other organisations.
Bondholder Absa gave Van Rooyen’s house to the South African Police Service in 1996, and it was demolished in a quest for forensic evidence that could provide clues to where the girls’ bodies may have been buried.
In 1988 and 1989, Van Rooyen and Haarhoff allegedly kidnapped and murdered Tracey-Lee Scott-Crossley, 14; Joan Horn, 12; Odette Boucher, 11; Anna-Mari Wapenaar, 12; Yolande Wessels, 12; and Fiona Harvey, 12. A seventh girl, Joan Booyse, 16, escaped from Van Rooyen’s house in January 1990.
During a police chase on January 15 1990, Van Rooyen killed Haarhoff and then committed suicide.
Wayne Elfrich, a resident and councillor who has been campaigning through Hicklin to secure the property for the ratepayers association, said the plan was to create an emergency place of safety and community centre to educate people on how to prevent kidnappings, sexual harassment and assaults.
“Instead of just having a property where people drive past and get the chills because they remember the horror that happened there, we decided to rather turn something horrible into something beautiful,” he said.
Social development spokesperson Lumka Oliphant said public works had offered the site for a child-protection unit. ‘The department requested the feasibility study compiled by public works,” she said. “It will make a decision in due course.”
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