Mom 'knew what was going on'
2007-03-13 07:21
Mitchells Plain - Allegations of drug abuse, rape and child neglect were doing the rounds on Monday after the arrest of a male friend of the mother of murdered eleven-year-old Annestacia Wiese.
There was also confusion about the last hours of her life, before Annestacia's body was found in the ceiling of her Mitchells Plain home on Sunday morning.
A huge search was launched on Friday after Stacie, as she was known, disappeared on her way to the shop.
Furious neighbours are saying that Stacie was never "gone", as her mother Janine Wiese had alleged.
Mother 'not competent'
The police fetched Wiese at her home for questioning early on Monday morning. Police spokesperson Billy Jones said she was not a suspect.
"It is just part of police procedure. She is also not under police surveillance and we have recommended that she stay with family."
Wiese, accompanied by police officers, went to her deserted home briefly on Monday afternoon to get a photograph of Stacie. She was crying when she got out of the van and was assisted by constable Shaakirah Hardien and a counsellor, Beatrice Morris.
Wiese hugged her daughter's photo closely to her chest.
Neighbours who gathered at the house, were furious about the events of the weekend.
Meryll Snell, who said she was a good friend of Wiese's, related how they often used tik together. She said Wiese was not a competent mother.
"She knew about the whole thing. She knew what was going on."
According to her it was one of Wiese's young friends who had been arrested by the police in connection with Annestacia's murder.
Snell's mother, Cathy Snell sobbed as she told how she regarded Stacie as one of her own grandchildren.
Threatened to tell
"I raised Stacie and her brother Bradwin. When were they going to get rid of the body?"
She alleged that Wiese had fetched Stacie from school under false pretences.
The neighbours believe that a remark Stacie made to her friend Colleen, 13, probably led to her death.
She had apparently threatened to tell her father how the suspect had been abusing her. Colleen was not aware exactly of the nature of the abuse.
A neighbour at the scene who did not want to be named, said they suspected that Stacie was raped and silenced before she could tell anyone of the abuse.
When she was found, only a cloth covered her naked body.
Jones said because of the heat in the ceiling, her body was already in a reasonably decayed state when it was found.
It was not possible to determine at the scene, the reason for her death or whether she had been raped. He was still awaiting the preliminary post-mortem report.
Joan van Niekerk of Childline told Jan Gerber on Monday that what had happend to Annestacia was "terribly sad" and a typical example of violence against children.
"This is unfortunately how men with an urge to hurt children, operate. They befriend a family that will allow them to enter the child's world and to win the child's confidence."
On Monday night, 500 people held an emotional wake at the house where Anastacia's body was found, reported Marius Louw.
The group sang religious songs by candlelight and lay flowers and a wooden cross at the door.
A call was made on the crowd to come to court on Tuesday.
A 24-year-old man was arrested on Sunday evening after police questioned him.