marie claire local investigation

tracey-lee scott-Crossley
disappeared: age 14 last seen: randburg

missing
call 555 3804

missing
disappeared: age 12 last seen: pietermaritzburg

Fiona Harvey
call 555 3804

missing
disappeared: age 12 last seen: pretoria

Joan Horn

missing
disappeared: age 11 last seen: Kempton park

Odette Boucher
call 555 3804

call 555 3804

missing
disappeared: age 12 last seen: Kempton park

anne-Mari Wapenaar
call 555 3804

missing
disappeared: age 13 last seen: Kempton park

Do you recognize these women?

They disappeared 18 years ago. No bodies were ever found but all the evidence pointed to Gert van Rooyen and his lover. So what really happened to those six girls? The case came under the spotlight again this year when bones were found in Durban and when Carte Blanche broadcast the results of an investigation which attempted to reveal where the bodies were buried, but ultimately proved inconclusive. As the authorities prepare to take their findings further, Marie Claire revisits one of South Africas most chilling unsolved crimes. Words Zodwa Kumalo
Note: these are digitally reconstructed images based on photographs of the girls at the time of their disappearance.
121 75

Yolanda Wessels
call 555 3804

74 120

marie claire local investigation

n a warm afternoon in September 1989, best friends Anne-Mari Wapenaar, 12, and Odette Boucher, 11, walked home arm in arm from their Kempton Park school. White suburbia, protected as it was by die Groot Krokodil PW Botha, was a place where parents thought nothing of letting their children walk to friends houses or play in the street. Anne-Mari and Odette had decided to go for a swim at Odettes house, but they never made it there. In the last year, four other girls had gone missing in similar circumstances, and so a frantic search for Anne-Mari and Odette was mounted. Police trawled malls, friends houses and even nearby dams, desperate for any clue that might lead to the girls recovery. For six excruciating days they heard nothing, and then the mothers of the two girls both received letters, supposedly from their daughters, saying the pair had gone to Durban with some boys. (The letter supposedly from Odette was later definitely determined to be a forgery.) When the suspects were narrowed down to paedophile Cornelius Gerhardus Gert van Rooyen and his lover Francina Johanna Hermina Joey Haarhoff, their home (later dubbed the house of horrors) in Capital Park, Pretoria was ransacked. Odettes yellow sports bag and AnneMaris house key were found there, together with a letter listing the girls mothers names and contact numbers, but there was no sign of the girls themselves. By the start of 1990, it seemed as if the whole country was searching for the missing girls. There had been six abductions in total. Sightings included one of a nervous-looking man driving
76

a white Ford Bantam bakkie with two girls in the back (by a traffic officer in Hilton, KwaZulu-Natal) and the tale of a hitchhiker picked up by two men in Springbok. He claimed a frightened girl in the back seat had passed him a note on which she had written the cars description and registration number; the name and number of Frik Roodt (an investigator who had appeared on public posters) and the name Odette Boucher. All these sightings eventually proved to be false. Then, five months after the deaths of Van Rooyen and Haarhoff, a letter apparently written by Anne-Mari was found at Fabric Library in Midrand. A shop assistant remembered seeing a girl of about 12 with short black hair. I can still see her sitting there and wondered at the time why she was looking so scared, Debora Sloane told The Star. Shortly afterwards she discovered the letter in between carpet samples. It read: I am Anne-Mari. My friend and I are with our kidnappers at [an upmarket Johannesburg northern suburbs street address]. My friend has tried to phone, but was cut off. A handwriting expert confirmed that the note was written by Anne-Mari. It remains the one piece of evidence that suggests the girls may have outlived their kidnappers. Eighteen years later, on 21 March this year, unusually stormy seas washed up human bones on Durbans Umdloti beach, just 500 metres from what is believed to have been Van Rooyen and Haarhoff s holiday home. Forensics concluded that the bones were that of an adult female and a child of unknown sex. Joan Horns mother Ansie told reporters, Until we get proof, it will remain a shot in the dark. I have received false hope so many

times that I dont want to believe anything until I have real answers. Superintendent Vincent Mdunge, Provincial Communications Officer for the KwaZulu-Natal South African Police Service confirmed that there was no link between the bones and the missing girls. But for their families, old wounds had been opened.

GERT VAN ROOYEN AND THE MISSING GIRLS

1979

A timeline of established events, up until Van Rooyen killed Joey Haarhoff and then committed suicide

Gert van Rooyen abducts and sexually assaults two girls (aged 10 and 13) at Hartebeespoort Dam. He is sentenced to four years imprisonment.

SEpTEMbER 1983
van Rooyen and his wife aletta divorce. Five years later, in 1988, he would start dating Joey Haarhoff (left, with van Rooyen).

etween 1988 and 1990 the disappearance of six middle-class white girls of a similar age gripped South Africa. The faces of Fiona Harvey, 12; Tracey-Lee ScottCrossley, 14; Joan Horn, 12; Yolanda Wessels, 13; Odette Boucher and Anne-Mari Wapenaar were plastered across the media, on milk cartons and posters stuck to street lamps and trees. Gripped with fear, SA parents had the collective thought: What if that were my daughter? The first girl to disappear, on 1 August 1988, was Tracey-Lee Scott-Crossley of Randburg, although police have always been skeptical about her link to Van Rooyen and Haarhoff. TraceyLees mother had planned to meet her at home at lunch time before they went to Cresta Shopping Mall, but when she got home, there was no sign of her daughter other than a roll of sweets and some change on the counter. In the same year, three days before Christmas, Pietermaritzburg schoolgirl Fiona Harvey walked to the local shop to buy milk for her mother and was never seen again. Eyewitnesses saw her talking to a man in a bakkie later confirmed to belong to Gert van Rooyen.

TRacey-Lee ScoTTcRoSSLey

1 AuGuST 1988 22 DEcEMbER 1988

Fiona HaRvey

12, of Pietermaritzburg disappears.

14, of Randburg disappears.

12, of Pretoria disappears.

Joan HoRn

7 JuNE 1989 22 SEpTEMbER 1989

oDeTTe BoucHeR anD anne-MaRi WaPenaaR

11 and 12, of Kempton Park go missing.

3 NOVEMbER 1989

Joey Haarhoffs niece, 13, of Kempton Park vanishes.

yoLanDa WeSSeLS

11 JANuARY 1990 15 JANuARY 1990

Police stake out van Rooyens house. When a car chase ensues, van Rooyen kills Haarhoff and then himself.

South African parents had the collective thought: What if that were my daughter?

16, of Pretoria is abducted by Haarhoff, molested by van Rooyen and manages to escape.

Joan BooySen
JuNE 1990

Letter apparently written by anne-Mari Wapenaar is discovered at Fabric Library in Midrand.

marie claire local investigation

On 7 June 1989, little Joan Horn and two friends were walking to a dog show when a white Ford Bantam bakkie pulled up to them and a woman described by Joans friends as about 40 years old with blonde hair (later identified as Joey Haarhoff ) promised Joan R20 if she showed her where a certain place was. Joan got into the car. Then, in a bizarre twist, Yolanda Wessels, Joey Haarhoff s niece, also disappeared. She never came home from school on 3 November 1989, and was last seen in a green and white Volkswagen Kombi (owned by Van Rooyen) with a blonde woman fitting her aunts description. During the search of Van Rooyens house, Yolandas prefects badge was found in a desk drawer with her photograph. Pretoria teen Joan Booysen narrowly escaped becoming the seventh girl to disappear forever when, on 11 January 1990, she accepted a lift to school from Haarhoff while waiting at a bus stop. Joan said Haarhoff drove to her house in Capital Park, where Van Rooyen tried to force himself on Joan and then slapped her. He handcuffed her at gunpoint and forced her to take some pills before stuffing a stocking into her mouth. When she asked to use the toilet, Van Rooyen pulled down her panties and made her lie in a cupboard while he fondled her before locking her inside. After half an hour, Joan managed to release the cupboard latch and find her way out of the house. She ran into the street, where a man picked her up just as Haarhoff (who had been watering the garden) noticed and ran after her. On 15 January 1990, just a few days after Joan Booysens escape, police finally caught up with Van Rooyen and Haarhoff. A car chase ensued, but before police could arrest the pair, Van Rooyen
78

shot Haarhoff, then turned a different gun on himself. The police report concluded that the full story of what had happened to the girls had died with Van Rooyen and Haarhoff that day. Six years later, Van Rooyens house was examined for the last time for traces of human hair and nails and scoured with sonar equipment, before being demolished and the soil sifted in the hope of finding clues. Nothing was found apart from animal bones. A journalist who spoke to Marie Claire on condition of anonymity says she visited the house of horrors before it was demolished. It was a creepy place. There were fish tanks of white mice and in the lounge, dozens of framed photos of Van Rooyen smiling and posing stared out at me. It was like someone had made a shrine to him. We took the pictures we needed and left. My crew and I couldnt get out of there soon enough.

INTERNATIONAL AbDucTIONS These kidnappings have been among the most high-profile
recent news stories around the world

STILL MISSING

missing

Who Madeleine Mccann Went missing May 2007, when she was three Where algarve, Portugal What happened Madeleines parents left her and two siblings sleeping at their beach resort while they had dinner. When they returned to check on them, Madeleine was gone. The Mccanns have set up a website to highlight the plight of missing children around the world (www.youtube. com/dontyouforgetaboutme) and at the time of going to print, the search for Madeleine continues.

HELD IN A cELLAR

ll the girls were pre-pubescent, with fair complexions; all were from middleclass suburban families. They disappeared in broad daylight from shopping areas or streets near their homes. It seems likely that they were carefully chosen and monitored in a precise, premeditated manner by the perpetrators. Tracey-Lees mother Noreen Breeds told Marie Claire: They knew our comings and goings. They knew when TraceyLee was going to be home alone. These girls were picked, watched and the kidnappings were all planned. This was definitely not a spur of the moment thing. As a convicted paedophile, Van Rooyens motives for kidnapping the girls seemed obvious. He is said to have boasted to his friends about his sexual exploits with girls

found

FOuND bY cHANcE

found

Who Shawn Hornbeck Went missing october 2002, when he was 11 Where Missouri, uSa What happened in January, police raided a house while looking for missing 13-year-old Ben ownby. instead of one child, they found two the other was 15-yearold Shawn, who had been missing for four years. He was abducted by 41-year-old Michael Devlin and held only 80 kilometres from his home. Shawn had been allowed to visit malls and friends but made no attempt to escape. another case of Stockholm Syndrome?

pHOTOGRApHS The STar, inpra and gallo imageS/geTTy imageS GRApHIc ARTIST nico le roux

Who natascha Kampusch Went missing March 1998, when she was 10 Where vienna, austria What happened Wolfgang Priklopil held natascha in an underground room for eight-and-a-half years. She escaped in august 2006 when her captor, distracted by a phone call, left the door open. Priklopil committed suicide shortly after she escaped. experts believe natascha suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, in which the captive develops sympathy for the captor and makes no attempt to escape.

as young as five and one of his domestic workers claimed that Van Rooyen threatened to withhold her pay unless she brought him young girls from the township. As for the motives of mousy-haired widow and debtors clerk Joey Haarhoff, much less is certain. Friends and relatives couldnt understand why she started dating Van Rooyen in 1988 and said her personality changed dramatically when she did. Her three sons said it seemed almost as though she had been bewitched by him. It is widely believed that Van Rooyen and Haarhoff abused the girls and then disposed of their bodies. But over the years there have been many other theories. One sworn statement was made in September 1991 by an inmate of Weskoppies Hospital, Johannes Petrus van der Merwe, who knew Van Rooyens son Phillipus Henrico Flippie, having served time with him at the prison mental hospital near Pretoria. Van der Merwe said that Flippie had told him he believed his father had buried three bodies under the dunes near their holiday house in Umdloti, near Durban. At the time, the police dismissed Van der Merwes statement because of contradictions and the vague description of the gravesite, but when bones were discovered near the site this year, it was inevitable that a connection be made. Flippie himself was sentenced to life imprisonment at the hospital in 1991 for murdering and removing the organs of

a 15-year-old Zimbabwean girl, Naena Ndou, near Louis Trichardt. At the time of the kidnappings, Flippie gave various statements to the police: he said that his father had been involved in a childsmuggling network with three former National Party ministers, selling girls for cash. He later said that the girls had been killed as part of a satanic ritual, their bodies destroyed using acid, or that they had been sent to the Middle East. Yet another statement claimed that his father didnt kill himself or Haarhoff and that they had been shot by the police to prevent the truth from coming out. Flippies claims were thrown out and he was convicted of perjury.

I could hear her calling me in my mind. And then she stopped calling. Thats when I think she died

n 2003, Kobie Wapenaar (Anne-Maris mother) and Babs Wessels (Yolandas mother) consulted a psychic in order to make contact with their daughters. Cape Town-based medium Belinda Silbert claimed that Anne-Mari wanted her parents to know that she had died painlessly in a satanic ritual after being drugged. Silbert believes Van Rooyen and Haarhoff were Satanists and that the girls were sacrifices for the summer and winter solstices, as well as the equinox and Halloween festivals. The dates on which the girls went missing do loosely correspond with these times of the year. According to the South African Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, about 900 children are reported missing in SA each year, and over 2 000 are murdered. Captain Raymond Boucher, who has been involved with the case since his niece Odette disappeared, explained to Marie Claire why he believes it is so difficult to find the bodies of the missing girls. Unless a childs blood has been tested, or perhaps paternity requested,

there is no physical evidence (such as DNA) to compare bones or tissue samples. Where does one even begin? We cant compare the DNA of every parent whose child went missing. For all we know those girls could be lying unidentified in some mortuary. Captain Bouchers brother and his wife divorced a while after Odettes disappearance. My brother was spending a lot of time away from home looking for his daughter, says Boucher. They were both so focused on finding Odette. It was really tough for them and you can imagine, even if you dont say it, the one parent blames the other, even when no-one is to blame. Asked if he isnt tired after 18 years of investigating he replies, Ill never get tired of talking about Odette. If you talk to people, somebody somewhere might have some information. We still believe Odette is alive. Tracey-Lees mother Noreen Breeds, on the other hand, believes that her child is lost forever. She looks into the distance with tears running down her cheeks as she speaks to Marie Claire. I looked for her everywhere for months, worrying whether she was warm, eating... Those first three days I could hear her constantly calling me in my mind. And then she stopped calling. Thats when I think she died, but for two years I couldnt accept that. Some time after Tracey-Lees disappearance, her brother Mark Scott-Crossley was tried for murder for throwing an employee, Nelson Chisane, into a lions enclosure. Their mothers anguish shows on her lined face. Its been 18 years since Tracey vanished. She would have turned 33 in August. Ive sent birthday messages to her every year. My mind knows that shes gone but my heart doesnt. n
79