Eight-year-old Tazne Van Wyk who was found dead in a drainpipe outside the town of Worcester. (Jaco Marais)
Frequent ontradictions marred the testimony of the man standing trial for the murder of eight-year-old Tazné van Wyk as the state concluded its lengthy cross-examination at the Western Cape high court on Tuesday.
State prosecutor Lenro Badenhorst told Moyhdian Pangkaeker, 54, that his evidence in court was fabricated, following multiple contradictions.
“Stop saying I’m telling lies. Stop it please,” Pangkaeker responded.
The state prosecutor repeated — after the accused again contradicted himself: “You are fabricating your evidence as you go on.”
Pangkaeker responded: “Thank you.”
During his evidence in chief last week, Pangkaeker testified that he and Tazné had ended up together in a taxi with four foreigners — who he alleged were drug dealers — who kidnapped them in Ravensmead, dropped them in Worcester, only to kidnap them again after midnight near Hexpark, a suburb in Worcester. It is the same group of people, one woman and three men, that Pangkaeker said killed the young girl.
On 7 February 2020, the day Tazné disappeared, Pangkaeker claims he received a phone call regarding a job opportunity in Port Elizabeth. He was to meet the person that same day in Worcester. But Pangkaeker could not identify to the court who the person was or where in Worcester he was to meet them.
Badenhorst put it to him that his phone records do not show a call from someone that Friday morning. Pangkaeker maintained that he did receive the call, and that, was it not for that call for a job opportunity, he would not have crossed paths with Tazné later that day.
According to Pangkaeker he was on his way to the masjid in Ravensmead to pray before leaving for Worcester for the job opportunity. A taxi he described as a “Siyaya taxi” pulled up and asked him for directions to Malawi Camp, an informal settlement near Elsies River.
Veering from his evidence in chief, Pangkaeker told the court under cross-examination that he was “blocked” by the taxi, to which Badenhorst replied: “On your spiritual walk to the masjid a taxi blocks your freedom of movement?”
According to the accused, Tazné appeared next to him while he was speaking to the people inside the taxi. Although he did not mention dogs in his chief evidence, he claimed during cross-examination that Tazné came to him because she was hiding from them.
He said he told the woman, who was seated in the taxi, that he was not going in the direction of Malawi Camp but that he knew where it was. Tazné, who then seemed to know Pangkaeker, said, “Uncle Moyhdian, we will show them where Malawi Camp is.”
She confidently climbed into the taxi, Pangkaeker said, adding that he followed her in.
Badenhorst put it to Pangkaeker: “Was it not strange that on a Friday afternoon an eight-year-old arrives next to you and says she will show four foreigners where Malawi Camp is? Why did you not ask her who her parents were?”
“It happened so quickly,” Pangkaeker responded, claiming that when he tried to get out of the taxi, one of the male occupants prevented him.
Badenhorst pointed out that “by coincidence” the taxi drove to Worcester, where he had the job offer.
Both Pangkaeker and Tazné were dropped in Worcester, according to Pangkaeker’s testimony.
The accused said he wanted to go back to Cape Town to take “the lady back home”.
“So you were the proverbially good Samaritan?” asked the prosecutor.
“If I could, I would have done it”.
The prosecutor persistently asked that Pangkaeker explain why he did not tell anyone they had been kidnapped, or attempt to call Tazné’s parents, or his brother-in-law, who lives across from the Van Wyks’ home.
“I told her I will take her home. I made a promise,” Pangkaeker told the court.
Footage submitted to the court in May showed Tazné leaving a fuel station on the N1 highway on foot, with the accused holding her hand just before midnight on the day the accused claims they were kidnapped.
The state also brought forward two witnesses who gave Pangkaeker and Tazné a lift on that Friday evening. A witness testified that Pangkeaker mentioned he was on his way to Beaufort West, where Tazné’s mother lived.
Further footage shows the last moments Tazné was seen alive. She and Pangkaeker can be seen walking towards the N1, leaving the station. Asked which direction he and Tazné walked, left to De Doorns or right to Worcester, Pangkaeker answered “right”.
Footage contradicts the accused, as it shows he and Tazné turned left.
According to the accused, he and Tazné were kidnapped for a second time by the same people that had asked for directions earlier that day — this time in a Toyota pick-up truck — on their way to Hexpark’s train station.
Badenhorst asked Pangkaeker who killed Tazné.
The accused said he cannot say which of the four foreigners killed her as he was not there.
“I can’t say, I was not there, I can’t,” repeated Pangkaeker.
Tazné was found dead in a stormwater pipe outside Worcester, after she disappeared from her street in Connaught Estate, Elsies River. Pangkeaker was arrested on 17 February in Cradock in the Eastern Cape. He told the police where Tazné’s body was.
Tazné was raped, beaten to death with a blunt object and her hand was removed.
Badenhorst put it to Pangkaeker: “The reason Tazné had your DNA under her nails was because you violently attacked her just down the road at Bergsig motors, and she fought you.”
Closing his cross-examination, Badenhorst told the accused that he would argue that he, Pangkaeker, killed and raped Tazné.
“You are a dangerous person, you act as a predator when you find children alone,” said Badenhorst.
“I know I am not so,” responded Pangkaeker, who faces 27 charges, including three counts of common assault, two of kidnapping, 11 of rape, one of murder, sexual assault, incest and desecration of a corpse.
Pangkaeker pleaded not guilty to all counts.