Kelly Smith, the mother of the missing Joshlin Smith, was in tears following her bail hearing in the Vredenburg Magistrate's Court on 13 March. Pictures: X via @Netwerk24 and Supplied
The agonising wait for answers surrounding little Joshlin Smith – who has been missing for 84 days today (13 May) – has been extended as her disappearance was once again postponed.
In the headline-grabbing disappearance case of the girl, her mother, Racquel “Kelly” Smith, her boyfriend Jacquen “Boeta” Appollis and the couple’s friends Steveno van Rhyn and Lourentia “Renze” Lombaard were arrested and charged with human trafficking and kidnapping.
The accused made a brief appearance at the Vredenburg Magistrate’s Court on Monday morning.
The case, however, has been postponed to July 15 for further investigation into the disappearance of the Grade 1 Diazville Primary School pupil .
An extensive search operation − which has extended as far as the United Kingdom (UK) alongside Interpol − was launched after the grade 1 Diazville Primary School pupil mysteriously vanished on 19 February.
Tensions were already running high early on Monday morning as members of the community were gathering outside the Vredenburg Magistrate’s Court in the Western Cape where all four accused were set to appear for the first time together.
Smith, who confessed to being a tik (crystal meth) user, left her daughter in the care of Appollis when she went to do an odd domestic job on that fateful Monday morning.
On her return to the couple’s tin and wooden shack at about 5pm, Joshlin was missing.
Appollis denies any involvement in her disappearance, claiming that the last time he saw her was when she went to play outside.
ALSO READ: WATCH: A quarter button and ‘sakkie’ tik while Joshlin Smith vanished into the night
During Smith, Appollis and Van Rhyn’s first court appearance on 7 March, senior advocate Aradhana Heeramun, who appeared for the state, alleged that Smith instructed Appollis and Van Rhyn to sell Joshlin to another Middelpos man for R20 000 for muti.
The two men apparently made this confession after a 36-hour interrogation at Saldanha Police Station.
At Lombaard’s bail appearance on 18 March, state prosecutor Jacques van Zyl revealed in court that she made a confession before her arrest.
However, no further details of what had been confessed were provided.
All four abandoned their bail applications, choosing to remain behind bars. Smith and Lombaard have been remanded in custody at Cape town’s notorious Pollsmoor Prison and Appollis and Van Rhyn at Malmesbury Correctional Services.
ALSO READ: Muti murders in SA: Has Joslin Smith fallen prey to ‘occult economy’?
At the time, Magistrate Yolisa Sikhoyo postponed the case for investigators to obtain witness statements and conduct data analysis on the accused’s cellphones.
Police were also waiting for the results of the DNA analysis of bloodstained clothes, a knife and a sheet found in an open field about a kilometre away from Joshlin’s home on 2 March.
This, along with the outstanding data analyses, was still the argument on Monday for the case’s latest postponement.
The court heard on Monday that the police have received the forensic results of the DNA tests. However, it was not made public yet.
Investigators have also received the cellphone data and are in the process of analysing the information.
A violent clash between police and Saldanha residents unfolded outside the Vredenburg Magistrate’s Court during the bail hearing of Smith, Appollis and Van Rhyn on 13 March.
At the time, a police constable had to be rushed to hospital after she was pelted with stones by angry community members chanting “We want Joshlin” and brandishing placards outside the court.
The police resorted to use teargas and stun grenades to disperse the crowd attempting to force their way into court by removing a barbed wire barricade.
Since Joshlin’s disappearance, Smith came under fire from community members that she displayed little concern as to the whereabouts of her daughter.
So much so that their initial sympathy quickly turned into blame with the mother and her boyfriend of two years forced to hide from enraged community members at Saldanha Bay’s Hoedjiesbaai Hotel.
NOW READ: Joshlin Smith: Police deny arrest of Saldanha undertaker’s wife
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