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Couple: We saw Sheldean
26/02/2007 23:02 - (SA)
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| Viola and Frederick Erasmus of Pretoria North who are convinced they saw - and followed - missing Sheldean Human, who was with two women. (Theana Calitz, Beeld) |
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Virginia Keppler and Liela Magnus, Beeld
Pretoria - Sheldean Human, who disappeared from her home in Pretoria West on Sunday a week ago, is very much alive according to a couple from Pretoria North.
Frederick and Viola Erasmus are sure they saw the seven-year-old girl at Kwaggasrand shopping centre in Pretoria West at the weekend.
Erasmus said: "I went to donate blood on Saturday morning and while I was sitting there reading my newspaper, a little girl standing in front of Shoprite caught my eye."
That was about 12:45.
"I asked my wife to check if the child standing there wasn't the one in the newspaper."
Erasmus said his wife went to investigate and she, too, was also convinced it was Sheldean.
"She said the earrings, the two white teeth and the hair were exactly like Sheldean's."
The women 'seemed to panic'
Erasmus said the girl they saw was wearing a pink shirt, light-pink pants and takkies. "I can't remember the colour of her takkies."
He said he watched the child while his wife phoned the police. "But the bliksems didn't answer the telephone." He said the child was with a woman in her 30s and another in her 50s.
"When the younger woman noticed we were watching them, they seemed to panic."
"My wife kept phoning the police and eventually got hold of the flying squad. They didn't even know where Kwaggasrand shopping centre was."
An upset Erasmus said he and his wife discreetly followed the people around the shopping centre for more than an hour.
"When they went out, we did, too.
"Then my wife decided she had to act. She swiftly walked up to them and asked the one woman: 'What's the name of this sweet girl of yours?', but the woman just rebuffed her."
Guards couldn't do anything
"He said the two women got into a blue Toyota Corolla with the girl.
"I ran to my car and my wife ran to a security guard and showed him the newspaper and said he must stop them."
"The security guards just said they couldn't do anything.
"At one stage, we asked the police if we could grab the girl and run away with her.
"They said that if we grabbed the girl and something was wrong with her - for example, if she had been raped - we could be held liable."
According to him, the police never turned up.
"They eventually phoned us about 17:15 and asked us if we were still at the centre. Can you believe it?"
Erasmus said if the police had acted more swiftly, the case could have been solved already.
"Luckily, I took down the woman's car registration and the police are following that up."
He and his wife were scheduled to give statements to police on Monday night.
Police spokesperson Julia Claasen said the search for Sheldean was continuing.
Linked to 10 cases
Meanwhile, Liela Magnus reports that a suspected paedophile has been arrested in Nigel, east of Johannesburg, in the search for Sheldean.
Claasen said the 38-year-old man already had been linked to 10 cases of indecent assault of girls between the ages of eight and 13.
All the girls lived in the western part of Pretoria.
He was due to appear in Pretoria magistrate's court on Tuesday.
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