OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Wednesday 1.30pm.
A 15-year-old gang member, arrested in connection with the murder of 14-year-old Valencia Farmer at the weekend, on Wednesday asked the court to be kept in custody for his own safety.
The youth is the third member of the Naughty Boys gang to be arrested for Farmer’s murder.
She was stabbed 42 times and gang-raped in a derelict house near her Eerste River house on Sunday and left for dead.
She died in Tygerberg Hospital in the early hours of Monday.
Investigating officer Inspector Eddie Clark denied reports that Farmer had spoken to him prior to her death and that she had in fact named two of the accused.
He said she had been on a life support system and had pipes through her throat, but that he had mentioned a number of names and that she had nodded vigorously to indicate the men who had stabbed and raped her.
Clark said two more suspects had been identified and he was hoping for early arrests to bring the number of accused to five.
The 15-year-old youth appeared in camera in the Kleinvlei magistrate’s court on Wednesday.
Two alleged fellow gang members, Johannes Kriel, 25, and Glenville Faro, 18, appeared in the same pre-fabricated courtroom on Tuesday. All three will appear in the same court again on Thursday.