Eight-year-old Tazne Van Wyk who was found dead in a drainpipe outside the town of Worcester. (Jaco Marais)
A witness has placed the man accused of kidnapping and murdering four-year-old Tazné van Wyk within less than six kilometres of the little girl on the day of her disappearance from her street in Connaught Estate, Elsies River, in February 2020.
State witness Elsabe von Houten told the Western Cape high court on Tuesday that she and the accused, Moydian Pangkaeker, arrived at the Parow station the morning of Tazne’s disappearance after travelling together for three days.
According to Von Houten, they arrived at about 10am in Parow, about five hours before the child went missing. She did not see Pangkaeker after leaving him in Parow that morning.
Von Houten, who has a child with Pangkaeker, said she could not remember the day she last saw him in Parow, but recalled it was the same day she heard of a child who had gone missing.
“That was the day I was told he stole a child,” Von Houten said, adding that at the time she did not know who the child was.
Tazné’s body was found in a stormwater pipe outside Worcester two weeks after she disappeared.
Pangkaeker told the police where her body was after his arrest on 17 February 2020 in Cradock in the Eastern Cape.
Sergeant Ashley Johnson, who worked on the team that found Pangkaeker, and was present during his arrest, also appeared as state witness on Tuesday.
But Johnson could not answer the state’s questions in full because he suffers from memory loss as a result of contracting Covid-19 in May 2020 and December 2021. The state confirmed the sergeant’s memory loss when he took the stand.
Johnson was to testify about the items seized from Pangkaeker when he was arrested, and the task he had of taking the evidence to the Ravensmead police station in Cape Town. These items included shirts, a black boxer, scarfs, jeans and black Hi-Tec safety boots.
State prosecutor Lenro Bezuidenhout asked Johnson whether he could remember “spatters on the boots and how he would describe it”, to which Johnson replied: “I do not know.”
Although he recognised the items he had handed in, Johnson could not recall anything further about the investigation. The state, through Johnson’s examination, wanted to place on record details of the items seized from Pangkaeker, Bezuidenhout told the Mail & Guardian outside court.
Johnson confirmed that a blunt knife was found in the accused’s possession. The spatter on the Hi-Tec safety boots might point to the violent nature in which Tazné was killed, Bezuidenhout added.
Tazné was raped, beaten to death with a blunt object and her hand was severed.
The court adjourned before the defence cross-examined Von Houten.
The trial resumed on Tuesday after more than a month because of a court recess and after Pangkaeker was assaulted on his way to court on 6 June.
The M&G reported in June that according to court documents Tazné was not Pangkaeker’s first victim, and that the majority of his offences were committed after he was released on parole in 2013.
Pangkaeker faces 27 charges, including three counts of common assault, two of kidnapping, 12 of rape, one of murder, as well as charges for sexual assault, child exploitation, grooming of children, intimidation, incest and violating a corpse.
He has pleaded not guilty to all counts.