Mom: Who would want to hurt Anika?
2010-03-18 22:45
Pretoria - "Anika didn't like being hurt. Who would want to attack her? Why?" Charlotte Eksteen, mother of murdered Anika Smit, 17, asked on Thursday after she entered her daughter's bedroom, where the murder took place, for the first time.
"The questions just keep churning through my mind, over and over. It's going to drive me crazy because I simply can't understand it," said Eksteen, 51.
Anika was murdered on Wednesday last week when she stayed away from school due to an ear infection.
That afternoon, her father, Johan Smit, discovered her body in their house in Theresapark, in the north of Pretoria.
Holiday visit to mom
Anika was not only assaulted, she also had stab marks on her neck and her hands were chopped off. She was presumably also raped.
Eksteen and her husband, Hannes, live in Hartenbos. Anika would've visited them during the April holiday.
"When Hannes told me about Anika, I said it can't be true, it simply can't be. I had spoken to her only that morning and she said: 'Mommy, I'll see you one of these days'," said Eksteen.
"It feels so unreal. It feels like my child isn't really gone. Somebody's taken her away from me all of a sudden. I feel so empty."
Taught not to open for strangers
On Thursday, Eksteen went into her daughter's bedroom for the first time since her death.
Gwen Ramokgopa, Tshwane's executive mayor who visited them along with a delegation, asked to see the room.
They prayed, sang a song, and hugged Anika's parents and half-sisters, Cindy, 29, and Chantel, 31, Rudman.
"A darkness came over me when I walked into the room. I didn't want to go in, but I had to. It's strange. Maybe Anika had called to me that day and I wasn't there to help her," said Eksteen.
"I can't imagine who would want to maim my child like that."
Eksteen believes, as does Anika's father, that their daughter knew the man who murdered her. Since she was very young they had always taught her not to open the door for strangers.