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Sheldean accused took lie test
25/03/2008 21:03 - (SA)
Pretoria. - The man accused of murdering and raping seven-year-old Sheldean Human had passed a polygraph test while claiming he knew nothing about the girl's disappearance, the High Court was told on Tuesday.
Captain Susanne Knoetze of the police's missing persons bureau said she was involved in the search for Sheldean from the start and had also been at murder suspect Andrew Jordaan's house shortly after he was arrested.
Police had found a home-made album containing pornographic photos, as well as a dagga pipe and a small bag of dagga in Jordaan's room.
When she asked him when he had last seen Sheldean, he told her he had taken her and a friend to a park, but had left both children at Sheldean's house.
He said the child had played with him by pushing his hat off his head and he had told her she was forward ("orig").
He said Sheldean had asked him to come visit her again and whether she could go home with him because she was not getting food at home. But he had left after telling her she could not come with him.
Body found in ditch
Knoetze said Jordaan had stuck to this version during several interviews and had passed a polygraph test with the same story.
She had heard that Jordaan had asked to speak to her urgently on the weekend before Sheldean's body was found.
She eventually managed to interview him after leading detective, Director Piet Byleveld, had already questioned Jordaan and after Sheldean's decomposed body was found in a ditch near a fresh-produce market.
Knoetze said it was "totally untrue" that police knew anything about the whereabouts of the body before Byleveld's interview with Jordaan.
The body was discovered in a ditch near the Pretoria fresh-produce market two weeks after her disappearance and on the same day as Byleveld's interview with Jordaan.
Counsel for Jordaan, Khomotso Tlouane, put it to Knoetze that Jordaan would deny any knowledge of Sheldean's murder and would also deny that there had been dagga in his room when it was searched by police.
Madelein Herbst, who lived on the same property as Jordaan and his family, testified that Jordaan had arrived at her house on the evening of Sheldean's disappearance.
Has pleaded not guilty
He was trembling and not wearing a shirt. He told her he had assaulted a policeman who had searched him for drugs.
According to Herbst, Jordaan had later that evening - after two women questioned him about Sheldean - told her he had taken the girl to a park, but had left her at home, even after she told him she did not want to go home because there was no food for her.
Byleveld is expected to take the stand on Wednesday.
Jordaan has pleaded not guilty to abducting, raping and murdering Sheldean in February last year.
He also denied guilt to illegal possession of dagga, as well as charges of raping and indecently assaulting a seven-year-old girl friend of Sheldean over a period of nine months in 2006 and 2007.
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