For nearly three years, Gertruida Diergal has clung to the hope that her missing daughter will be found.
The dream faded last weekend when human remains — believed to be those of a 13-year-old boy — were recovered from a backyard sewerage system in her small town of Klawer, on the N7 near Vredendal in the Western Cape.
“Part of me still wants to hold onto the hope that my daughter may still be alive, but this murder has melted away that little hope,” Diergal told the Sunday Times this week.
The remains, believed to be those of Jerobejin van Wyk, were found in sewerage pipes at the home of Daniel Smit, 56, who has appeared in court charged with kidnapping and murder.
“The thought that my child may have died in a similar way keeps me awake at night,” said Diergal, whose daughter Geneva was nine when she vanished in 2019.
“What if the body parts that were found in the drain include that of my child? I have these unanswered questions racing through my mind.
“How do I find closure when there is not even a trace of her remains? If she was indeed murdered, how does anyone kill an innocent child who didn’t pose a threat to anyone? Geneva could not even run as she had a physical disability.”
Jerobejin disappeared on February 2, after he and a friend allegedly stole four mangoes from Smit's garden. Smit is accused of having chased the boys in his bakkie, smashing into Jerobejin and throwing him in the back of the vehicle.
He was arrested the following day and body parts believed to belong to Jerobejin were retrieved from a sewerage pipe on his property.
Smit’s lawyer, Santie Human, said he had been introduced to the occult at a young age and learnt how to kill and dispose of a body. She said her client had confessed to killing Jerobejin.
Kathrina Swarts, a friend of Van Wyk’s mother, Triesa, said the murder had left the community shattered.
“Seeing the forensics team collecting the remains of Jerobejin into body bags has left a lot of us so traumatised. I’ve been trying to put myself in the shoes of his mother and I cannot imagine what she must be going through,” she said.
“Our town has changed overnight and we are now even scared to let our children out as we are not sure if there are serial killers that could be out there waiting to chop our children up.
“Poor policing is our biggest problem. When the mother reported Jerobejin as missing the police didn’t pay attention and said the boy will probably come back home later.
“It was only after we started mobilising as the community and we went to the perpetrator’s house to demand answers that they paid attention.”
Monwabisi Sikhondo, a municipal worker who often worked in a park next to Smit’s home, helped to retrieve the body parts.
“I had never seen anything like that. To say the scene was horrific is an understatement,” he said. “When I got home that evening I could not sleep. I had to take a few tots of brandy just to take my mind off things. I have been drinking alcohol since then just to cope. I will soon be seeing a trauma counsellor organised by the municipality. Hopefully that will help.”
Trisha was too traumatised to speak to journalists. “I can’t do this anymore,” was all she could say.
Through a family spokesperson and former mayor of Matzikama municipality, Mathilda Bains, Triesa said processing her son’s death was agonising. She hoped to have closure when DNA test results came back.
“She is obviously very traumatised by the recent events, and the media attention is not making things any better for her,” said Bains.
Community leader Billy Claasen, executive director of the Rural and Farmworkers Development Organisation, said while Klawer was dogged by various social ills and crime, it was the first time a child had been killed.
“I never thought that a day would come where I would want to see a trauma counsellor. The crime scene was too much to bear for many of us,” he said.
• 6,234: Klawer's population in the 2011 census.
• 3: The number of unresolved cases of missing people in the town.
— IN NUMBERS
Claasen said unresolved cases of missing people, including 28-year-old Janine Button, who vanished in 2019, were indicative of the police’s attitude.
“The police have really failed this community. If it was not for the community members standing up and demanding that municipal workers pump out the drain, the police wouldn’t have found the body.”
Neighbours feared the murder would cause racial friction. “It will probably be seen by the coloured community as a racist killing, even though it’s not. If it’s viewed like that all of us will be negatively affected,” said one white resident.
“All of us are shocked by what happened, but this will probably give all of us a bad name.”
This week Smit’s home was deserted, with curtains drawn and gates closed. A neighbour who did not want to be identified said: “What kind of human being does that? It’s a child for God’s sake … how does one kill an innocent child?”
Western Cape police spokesperson Brig Novela Potelwa said allegations of poor service delivery by Klawer police were under investigation.
“Part of what the SAPS inspectorate will probe are claims made by the mother of the 13-year-old missing boy that when she initially went to report her son missing she was advised by Klawer police to return the following day,” she said.
“Concerns about the shortage of policing resources at Klawer SAPS are currently being looked into.”
Potelwa said detectives were still awaiting the results of DNA tests on the remains recovered from Smit’s drain.
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