Kid 'vanishes', found battered

2003-04-28 22:02

Zigi Ekron

Cape Town - Just a few hours before a five-year-old girl's mutilated body was found in an open field about 600m from their home, she had been sleeping between her parents.

Her uncle and a friend made the gruesome find.

Mikyllin Ontong's skull had been crushed and a blood-stained rock, the size of a rugby ball, was found near her body.

It is still unclear why and how she left the bed in the outside room that she shared with her parents and three-year-old brother. It is not yet known whether her attacker had raped her.

Meanwhile, police are investigating a charge of abduction.

While forensic experts combed the area where the body was found on Monday, members of the unit for serious violent crimes interviewed Mikyllin's father, Dawie Ontong, 28, and his wife, Leoni, 27, at Kraaifontein police station.

Pam van der Merwe, Mykyllin's grandmother, said she could not understand how someone hadn't woken up.

Heard granddaughter cry out

"Dawie is normally a light sleeper, especially in the early hours of the morning."

Ontong said on Monday afternoon that he had slept soundly because he had had too much to drink the previous evening.

Van der Merwe, who stays in the main house, said she heard Mikyllin cry out about 04:30.

The family started looking for the little girl when they realised she had disappeared.

Van der Merwe's son, Bertraam, 19, and a friend found Mikyllin's body about 06:45.

Van der Merwe said: "The person who murdered my granddaughter took her from her bed and murdered her in the bushes.

"The murderer must have lifted her over the gates without waking up the dogs. It was probably as they were carrying her away that I heard her cry."

- Die Burger