A SAPS forensic team began excavating a site on Blythedale Beach‚ 20 km north of Ballito, thought to be a burial site for girls kidnapped by paedophile Gert van Rooyen in the 1980s.
Van Rooyen and his girlfriend Joey Haarhoff were accused of a spree of child kidnappings over 30 years ago.
Also read: WATCH: Search for Gert van Rooyen’s victims continues
In 1979 he abducted two girls aged 10 and 13 and forced them to perform sexual acts but released the two a day later in Pretoria.
He was arrested and convicted on charges of abduction‚ sexual assault and common assault of the girls. He served three years of a four year sentence.
In 1990, Van Rooyen shot Haarhoff and committed suicide after another of their victims escaped in Pretoria.
They are thought to have abducted and murdered at least six young girls between 1988 and 1989.
The bodies of his victims have never been found.
This is the second time police have excavated in Blythedale, after they found out that Van Rooyen and Haarhof had spent a weekend there.
In 2007 there was renewed interest after a set of adolescent bones was found on the beach near Umdloti, about 500m away from a holiday resort that Van Rooyen and Haarhoff were known to have visited.
However DNA testing did not identify any of their victims.
Today’s search is a result of a 15-month investigation by the SATV programme Fokus, led by executive producer Alet Wright, who said information about the search would be revealed in the Fokus broadcast on Sunday night.
No evidence was found where the police were digging around a stormwater drain on the main beach today, but the search will continue tomorrow.
ALSO WATCH: Search for Gert van Rooyen’s victims continues
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