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Fingerprint of Fate
| Date: |
29 July 2007 07:00 |
| Show: | Carte Blanche |
Every year hundreds of children go missing in South Africa. Some make headline news, others become statistics. One case has remained in the minds of the public for nearly 20 years
The face of a paedophile and his accomplice. The names of Gert van Rooyen and Joye Haarhoff are synonymous with the disappearance of six schoolgirls in the late 1980s.
Tracey-Lee Scott-Crossley, aged 13, disappeared on 1 August 1988 in Randburg.
Fiona Harvey, aged 11, disappeared on the 22nd December in Pietermaritzburg.
The following year Joan Horn, aged 13, disappeared on the 7th June 1989 in Pretoria
Anne-Marie Wapenaar, aged 12, disappeared on the 22nd September in Kempton Park with Odette Boucher, her 12-year-old friend.
Yolanda Wessels, another 12 year old and also from Kempton Park, disappeared on 2 November.
The country was in shock.
In January a seventh girl made a brave escape from this house in Malherbe Street in Capital Park, Pretoria.
She told police she had been abducted, drugged, abused and locked up in a cupboard inside the house.
The owner was Gert van Rooyen, but by the time the girl had made an affidavit, he and Haarhoff were on the run.
Ruda Landman (Carte Blanche presenter): 'The police staked out the house hoping that the fugitives would return. That happened a few days later. Van Rooyen and Haarhoff drove slowly past the house, but were alerted by a police car parked in the driveway. They fled with the police in hot pursuit and a few minutes later the officers opened fire. Van Rooyen and Haarhoff's vehicle came to a standstill against the rails over there on the onramp of a nearby highway. It's just next to the PPC cement factory ' about two kilometres from the house. The official version is that he shot her and then turned the gun on himself, but many people believe, even today, that they were shot dead by the police. The fact is they took their secrets to the grave.'
The house in Malherbe Street became the focus of a massive police investigation. The garden was dug up and searched while a team of detectives interrogated family members of Van Rooyen and Haarhoff. It soon emerged that he was a convicted sex offender who had served time in prison and that she was the aunt of Yolanda Wessels, who'd gone missing two months earlier.
Ruda: 'The police were only able to connect five of the missing girls to Van Rooyen and Haarhoff. No trace of evidence has ever been found to show that Tracey Lee Scott Crossly, the first girl to go missing, was one of their victims.'
The story remained in the news and made headlines every time someone came forward with a new theory that the girls had been taken out of the country or sold into prostitution or killed in satanic rituals.
When Van Rooyen's son was arrested for an unrelated murder it resulted in yet another media frenzy and renewed public interest in the original case.
Investigators travelled thousands of kilometres to follow-up leads and the case became the full time job of police Captain Carel Cornelius.
[Carte Blanche Archive] Captain Carel Cornelius (SAPS): 'There were many wild goose chases. At one stage we went to Swaziland where the investigation kept us busy for two weeks ' keeping us away from out homes over Christmas and New Year. And in the end it turned out to be false information.'
Six years after Van Rooyen and Haarhoff's deaths new rumours surfaced. A newspaper claimed there was a hidden cellar under the Capital Park house and police decided to demolish the building once and for all.
Again the media and the public kept vigil for weeks, watching every bit of the action. Carte Blanche was also there.
Investigators were determined to get a result one way or the other.
[Carte Blanche 1996] Captain Dave Harrington (SAPS): 'We are going to make sure that when we leave here that we have either found something or we never need to come back here at a later stage where people ten years down the line come and get this information again.'
But once again nothing substantial was found. No cellar, no new clues and no remains. Linette Boucher, the missing Odette's mother, refused to believe that the case had gone cold.
[Carte Blanche 1996] Linette Boucher (Mother): 'I will carry on looking for her and believing that she is alive like I have always done.'
The Wapenaar family also held out hope for the return of the missing Anne-Marie.
[Carte Blanche 1996] Kobie Wapenaar (Mother): 'I still think that she is alive. She must be somewhere. But she is not dead ' that is my belief.'
The mother of Yolanda Wessels, however, thought differently.
Babs Wessels (Mother): 'No, she is not alive. She was too petite and she got hurt too easily. She was a very refined person and would never have coped.'
Ruda: 'We may never know what happened here at 227 Malherbe Street, Capital Park. The empty stand locked behind this gate was the last physical point of reference. Since the demolition of the house in 1996 there have been no new leads for the police, the parents or the media. They had to wait for new information or new technology.'
That happened nine years later in Bloemfontein, 400 kilometres away from Pretoria.
Danie Krugel, a former police colonel, claims to have developed technology that could trace humans and things like diamonds, oil and bacteria by using a small sample of signature material.
Once he has tested a sample, Danie's equipment is able to geographically pinpoint the main body from which it was sourced.
The invention is thought to be based on quantum physics and a global positioning system, or GPS, is used to define the search area.
Danie has had many successes.
[Carte Blanche Archive] Danie Krugel (Inventor): 'I put it clearly, this is science. This is science. That is what is fantastic about it, it is tied to science we have but people just didn't link it.'
When we first met him Danie was reluctant to publicly put his invention to the test or to divulge exactly how it works, apart from saying that his most precious secret is the energy source he uses.
He was, however, eager to get involved in the Gert van Rooyen case.
[Carte Blanche Archive] Danie: 'When I started I said to myself that maybe I could find out what happened to these children, maybe.'
Ruda: 'By then the children in the Van Rooyen case had been missing for 16 years. If alive they would be nearing 30. If dead, in what state would their remains be and will the equipment be able to register their whereabouts? There is also the possibility that they might have been taken out of the country. All of this was new territory for Danie.'
We followed Danie's progress over a year as he worked on one case after the other. In December 2006 we broadcast a story and called it 'The Secret Science'. We had no scientific explanation for what he was doing, but we saw it working time and time again.
He only needed the beard stubble on a razor to pinpoint the location of a murder suspect.
[Carte Blanche Dec 2006] Captain Danie van der Berg (SAPS): 'Danie took daily readings to see where he was and what was happening. But every time we just missed him by a few minutes.'
[Carte Blanche Dec 2006] Danie: 'One night at about seven o'clock I thought that this is now enough and I tried to get as close to him as possible. I told them that is where he was and the next morning they phoned me and said that they had found him.'
There were times when Danie's findings were perceived to be wrong; only to be proved correct once a comprehensive search was undertaken.
This drum filled with crude oil was traced by Danie from a distance of six kilometres and within minutes.
But it was a test with bacteria that was almost beyond belief. Danie located a hidden sample within minutes.
Ruda: 'After our broadcast in December Danie received hundreds of requests for assistance from as far away as Kazakhstan and Hong Kong. There were of course also the sceptics who questioned him and us in no uncertain terms. But most viewers wanted only one thing. They wanted Danie Krugel to find the missing girls in the Gert van Rooyen case. We couldn't reveal it then, but he was already working on that together with Carte Blanche.'
Part 2
We started our search for hair samples in Kempton Park where three of the girls went missing in 1989.
At the time, Odette Boucher, Anne-Marie Wapenaar and Yolanda Wessels lived just a few street blocks from each other, but two of the families have since moved away.
Anne-Marie's mother, Kobie, however, is still working at the same place and she was able to help us.
She had kept a lock of her daughter's hair since Anne-Marie was a toddler. It's the only physical memento she has left, but she was willing to part with some of it in the faint hope that it may lead us to Anne-Marie.
It was a painful journey into the past. The hair was almost 28 years old.
Kobie Wapenaar (Mother): 'One always tries to be positive and hope for the best. You just have to believe that there would be a conclusion.'
In Bloemfontein Danie tested the hair sample and got a positive, but wavering signal coming from Gauteng.
He was worried that his highly sensitive equipment registered the remaining lock of Anne-Marie's hair that was still in her mother's possession in Kempton Park.
So, we collected that too and once all the hair was with Danie in Bloemfontein, the equipment picked up a clear signal.
The line ran straight from Bloemfontein to Pretoria.
Danie Krugel (Inventor): 'In the Gauteng direction towards Pretoria and then I asked what is the possibility of another child's hair. I wanted one signal to prove another one.'
Ruda: 'But this was a highly sensitive matter. Over the years every time the story resurfaced in the media, it reopened old wounds often creating false hope for the grieving parents. So we decided to approach one parent at a time.'
Fiona Harvey, Odette Boucher and Joan Horn's families were contacted but none of them had any hair samples.
This is Yolanda Wessels' hair. Shortly before her disappearance she had her childhood braids cut off.
It's a lot of hair, well preserved and this time Danie picked up a much stronger signal. Once again the direction was Pretoria.
Danie: 'Precisely the same signal as Anne-Marie towards Pretoria.'
To refine the search Danie needed to get at least one more reading on each of the two hair samples from another location.
He travelled to Pretoria and went straight to 227 Malherbe Street, Capital Park, the empty stand where Van Rooyen's house once stood and the last place where the missing girls are thought to have been.
The data compiled from Yolanda Wessels' hair was tested again.
Danie: 'The first signal I got showed is a line running along the side of Capital Park. Then I went up a few kilometres and the second signal came back to an area very, very close to the railway area in Capital Park.'
The area is a dried up dam near the railway line. A mere six suburban blocks from Van Rooyen's now empty stand.
Danie: 'There is Van Rooyen house. The area that we have identified is here. That's the point. The signal points roughly here from that side and then I refined them and they showed right next to the railway line.'
At the site Danie also tested Anne-Mari's data and within ten minutes determined that the signal he'd picked up for her was coming from the same place.
Danie: 'I believe I have the answers and it's awful when your results lead you to a deserted area ' so I can't express myself right now because this is something I've dreamt of doing for a very long time.'
As he realised the implications of his findings, Danie became extremely distressed.
Danie: 'Both readings lead me to this area. If you take the reeds and the dam area and you assume you have an accurate reading then this is the correct area. But if there is a slight deviation I would include the railway line. But both readings pointed to this side.'
Ruda: 'It was just too much of a coincidence: identical readings for both Yolanda and Anne-Marie pointing to a secluded area less than two kilometres from Van Rooyen's house. If this empty stretch of land now being developed is indeed the correct location, it can only mean one thing: the two girls are no longer alive.'
Danie: 'According to the equipment this is the place where both Yolanda Wessels and Anne-Marie Wapenaar's readings intersect. It's 17 years ago, so say I'm out by a hundred metres or so. But this is the area.'
The property is on the western boundary of Capital Park next to the Apies River near the PPC cement factory.
It's very close to the spot where Van Rooyen and Haarhoff died in 1990.
This document shows that a portion of the original farm was expropriated in 1975 by Transnet to build a railway line.
The remaining land was leased to tenant vegetable farmers until 2006 when developers purchased it for residential construction.
Included in the area is the basin of a dam and its wall, the ruins of the old farm buildings and a derelict canal system.
This aerial photograph taken in 1991, shortly after the children's disappearance, clearly shows the farm buildings, as well as, two inhabited dwellings bordering the dam.
Ruda: 'This is where those two houses once stood and the area that Danie identified is just beyond those reeds, about 50 metres away. This dirt track connects the site with the part of Capital Park where Van Rooyen lived.'
The dirt track is also visible on the 1991 aerial photograph. The entire area is on Transnet land.
Over the next fortnight Danie retested his data from different vantage points across the neighbourhood. No less than 13 readings were taken with every line running straight to the same point.
Danie: 'Nothing has changed. Precisely the same point. So there must be, if I look at that equipment, and it has already proved it self in all the other murder cases where they did find the bodies, why would it take me here?'
So, he marked out a search area roughly the size of a football pitch for Anne-Marie and Yolanda respectively.
The logical progression from here was to excavate.
Danie had given us compelling reasons to take him seriously. However, since the science is largely untested we made a decision not to involve the police for fear of wasting valuable police resources on something we were not sure about.
Ruda: 'We couldn't just start digging without permission, so we approached the directorate of Public Prosecutions and they said that since this was not a formal or informal grave yard and since it is not known what we would find, if anything, the only permission needed was that of the owners of the property. However, should anything notifiable be found the relevant authorities must be informed. So we contacted Transnet who granted us access to the land for one week.'
We decided to take a scientific approach and consulted the best experts available. For the forensic excavation we appointed a team from the University of Pretoria.
Leading the team was forensic anthropologists Professor Maryna Steyn. She was assisted by archaeologists Coen Nienaber, Louisa Hutten and Johann Nel as well as a team of workers.
Professor Maryna Steyn (Forensic Anthropologist): 'We have excavated extensively, especially archaeological remains. We have also been involved in several excavations to remove graves in areas that are earmarked for development. So we have moved several hundred of those graves. I think that everything should not have been destroyed. After 18 years one should be able to find bones ' if there are any.'
Ruda: 'We took a decision not to reveal the nature of our investigation until it was completed. But we needn't have worried as our activities went unnoticed, once again confirming just how secluded the area is.'
The densely overgrown reed beds had to be cleared before the surface could be examined.
Johan Nel (Archaeologist): 'Fires in these reed beds could have turned the bones into cinder. The reason being that the reeds don't just burn, they keep on smouldering for weeks. It creates a little oven and that could disintegrate the bones completely. Then you have other factors like humidity and the rain and the heat and decomposition will occur very quickly. After months you will be lucky to find much of it left.'
The basin of the dam was inspected for anomalies that would indicate whether attempts had been made to hide remains dumped in the area.
The silt deposits were 50cm deep, undisturbed and continued below the dam wall. That proved that the dam had been built in an existing wetland.
Trenches were dug in the basin of the dam to search for skeletal remains. Although a laborious task, the silt was quite easy to penetrate.
This went on for two days, but nothing was found.
A test trench was also made through the dam wall to establish how and possibly when it was built.
It revealed the wall had been constructed from huge blocks of building rubble in a single event and that it did not form as a result of repeated dumping.
Coen Nienaber (Archaeologist): 'The question is whether we should accept that the dam was created when this wall was made. The wall was made in one shot. It was not created by dumping rubble on the edge of the wetland.'
Ruda: 'The neighbours confirmed the dam was built around 35 years ago so the wall was in place when the girls went missing. We didn't have to dig underneath it.'
The deep cavities between the boulders on the top of the dam wall were also opened and searched.
The team was on tenterhooks, holding their breath every time a new cavern was explored.
But all of them were empty.
Morale was low and we decided to call Danie in again.
His equipment simply couldn't be pushed any further and he was unable to narrow the search area more.
Ruda: 'When we started we were hoping to find complete skeletons, but as the days passed it became clear that that was highly unlikely. We would have to concentrate on bone fragments, which might tell us a story.'
There were pieces of bone everywhere.
Most displayed cut and saw marks associated with food remains.
Others were so badly damaged and small that the team was unable to classify them.
Remember we were dealing with an area that was the size of two football pitches.
The task was enormous and costly.
Ruda: 'We realised we were running out of time. With only three days left and an impossibly large area still to cover we took a very unusual step. We called in a clairvoyant to assist us. The first surprise was that she told us what we were after before we could tell her.'
Part 3
Clairvoyant and television personality, Marietta Theunissen has worked on hundreds of cases, including murders, suicides and missing children.
Ruda Landman (Carte Blanche presenter): 'When we approached Marietta we did not tell her that we were working with Danie or that we had already begun excavating the site in Capital Park identified by him. We watched with amazement as she drew us a map.'
Marietta Theunissen (Clairvoyant): 'These are the railway lines and there's the tree and there is the river bed.'
Marietta's map is an almost exact replica of the 1991 aerial photograph we obtained.
Prominent is the tree Danie had marked to indicate the area where we would find the remains of Yolanda Wessels.
Marietta: 'Closer to this tree you will find one body.'
But just how deep should one dig?
Marietta: 'Not deep, maximum a metre.'
Without ever having been to the site, Marietta defined several other features on the terrain.
She said these were being pointed out to her by one of the missing girls who appeared in her psychic vision.
Marietta: 'If you stand at the tree you will see a pole shape, like a cell phone pole, or a very high pole that see looks up at and that sticks out. From this tree there is like a wood panel that looks like a foundation or wood. There is something with wood here. The rubble is important and it is like a heap of rubble there. Metal, there is a metal thing that is higher up, closer to the railway line and she repeats this to me. Something comes as a confirmation for me that doesn't go away ' that is her signposts. But the thing with psychic vision I have no clue how far it is apart. That is where psychics make mistakes because it is my psychic map.'
We showed Marietta pictures of the girls to enable her to identify who appeared in her vision. Surprisingly, she was convinced that she made contact with Tracey-Lee Scott-Crossley, despite the fact that police had been unable to connect her to the Van Rooyen case.
Marietta: 'I do believe there are four bodies, but this one is on the other side of the railway line.'
Joan Horn did not appear in Marietta's psychic vision, while Anne-Marie Wapenaar, Yolanda Wessels and Fiona Harvey were very quiet and in the background.
However, according to Marietta, Odette Boucher really wanted to be heard and persisted in pointing out certain markers.
Marietta: 'There is a sign or something here where the railway line splits. It looks like an arrow because she talks about this arrow and I see a proper arrow.'
Marietta also had a vision about the place where Gert van Rooyen and Joye Haarhoff kept and fed the children.
Marietta: 'He took them to this cage-like thing with water. There they were, Odette talks about 12 days, two weeks, easily, and Van Rooyen took them food.'
She appeared to be totally engaged by the voices she was hearing and her vision continued for the next two hours.
When we took Marietta to the site she walked straight across the railway lines to the other side into the deserted reed beds to a broken concrete slab that looked like the remains of a septic tank.
Marietta: 'This makes me feel sick. Three of them were together in such a tunnel, in such a cave. I don't like this at all.'
In the murky waters below, our camera picked up a pair of medical scissors.
We came across several old shoes. One pair of children's sandals in particular really grabbed Marietta's attention.
She believed there was a connection between the shoes and Tracey Lee Scott-Crossley.
Marietta: 'I don't have to look any further ' she's shown me enough.'
An exhausted Marietta suggested we expand the excavation to this area nearer to the railway lines and the ruins of the old farm buildings.
But she agreed with Danie that the dam wall and the eucalyptus tree were the correct locations for Anne-Marie and Yolanda.
Marietta: 'Two are here, Tracey-Lee is definitely over the railway line. Here especially is Yolanda and down there is Odette and also Fiona.'
Ruda: 'It was now a race against time. With two days left we decided to continue with our search in the areas that Danie Krugel had marked, but at the same time start excavating, here, closer to the railway line as indicated by Marietta Theunissen.
The soil in this area was much easier to penetrate but to conduct a proper archaeological search is always a time consuming process.
If a proper procedure is not followed important clues can be missed, says archaeologist Johann Nel.
Johan Nel (Archaeologist): 'The areas that we have excavated haven't been disturbed. You could miss something by a few centimetres.'
We found many artefacts indicating that this was an old rubbish dump and Johan was able to date some of them to the early 1900s.
Among the bones excavated was one that looked like a hand or foot bone.
Ruda: 'We couldn't tell whether the bone was human or animal. The experts were not sure either and gave it a preliminary classification of primate, dog or pig. Nevertheless we kept the bone aside for further analysis at a later stage.'
While one team was excavating near the railway line, the other was sorting the huge amounts of rubble retrieved from the top of the dam wall. However, not much more was found.
We were disappointed, but it was time to pack up and leave.
Johan: 'I don't think we failed, failed in finding concrete evidence, but we have reopened the search, I think.'
Ruda: 'So for all our efforts we were leaving with no concrete proof, just bags of bones presumed to be animal. To carry on excavating would require more funding, more manpower and much more time, which we didn't have. Or was there another way?
Part 4
Ruda Landman (Carte Blanche presenter): 'We did find another path to follow. Again it involved cutting edge science ' this time DNA that carries the unique genetic fingerprint for every individual. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.'
Remember this bone?
It was excavated at the Capital Park site and shows a strong resemblance to the small bones that are found in the human hand or foot.
But the experts we consulted disagreed on its origin.
The University of Pretoria said it was probably a primate or dog. A former employee at the Transvaal Museum said it was a pig, while the Free State University thought the bone was indeed human.
To get a definite answer we sent the bone to the Unistell Medical Laboratory in Cape Town where DNA Testing has been done for the past 30 years. Hundreds of paternity tests are conducted here on a routine basis through blood tests. But to extract DNA from a bone is a very difficult task, says MD, Dr Munro Marx.
Dr Munro Marx (MD Unistell Medical Lab): 'Bone is composed primarily of calcium and calcium inhibits the process of DNA amplification.'
Ruda: 'What does DNA amplification mean?'
Dr Marx: 'DNA amplification means just synthetically producing specific pieces of DNA that are unique to that person and his family members.'
Dr Joubert Oosthuizen was tasked with the process of extracting the DNA from the bone.
It's a skill that requires considerable time, patience, effort and expertise.
Dr Joubert Oosthuizen (Medical scientist): 'We find that most places in the bone are very hard and if we cut through it we should be able to break it.'
A grinder is then used to remove dirt from the surface of the bone.
Once properly cleaned, it is filed into a powdered form.
Dr Oosthuizen: 'Right now we've got a reasonable amount of the dust. That is more than enough to do a DNA profile.'
Detergents and enzymes are added to remove all contaminants and decalcify the bone.
Dr Oosthuizen: 'And in the end you have got a little bit like that, which is almost nothing at the bottom, which will be just a little bit of DNA.'
But to get that little bit of DNA, do the amplification and analyse the product may require repeated attempts, especially when a bone is this old. A standard profiling kit is used.
Dr Marx: 'These kits are unique for human DNA and will only amplify markers that occur in human DNA.'
Ruda: 'Ten days later we got the results. The DNA was human but it belonged to a man. It seemed as if we had stumbled upon the body of another person. There was however one other possibility that the bone had been contaminated with the DNA of some of the members of the team who had handled the specimen.'
Their DNA profiles were obtained from blood samples and compared with the DNA profile of the bone. Contamination was excluded.
Ruda: 'We were hoping to recover female DNA, but the fact that the bone was that of an unknown male raised yet more questions. So we decided to go back to the other bone fragments that we had recovered.'
There were several kilograms of bones and these were given to Dr Oosthuizen in Cape Town.
Some were clearly of animal origin, but many were so small and fragmented that it was impossible to tell.
Only a selected few of them were put through the process, cleaning, filing, extracting, amplifying and analysing.
It's a mammoth task that kept the lab busy for the next five months.
The bones were not only crushed and damaged; they've also been exposed to the elements for years, resulting in degraded or broken DNA.
Dr Marx: 'The quality is not good and therefore the DNA that one will be able to extract from the bones is also degraded DNA. By degraded DNA I mean DNA that has been broken into small fragments because of exposure to the elements.'
Back in Kempton Park we again approached the biological mothers of Yolanda Wessels and Anne-Marie Wapenaar.
Ruda: 'We needed DNA profiles of the mothers in case of a breakthrough in the bone testing. Should the profile of one of the bones match the profile of one of the mothers a biological relationship would be confirmed.'
The test was a standard paternity, or in this case maternity test, only a drop of blood was required to prove that mother and child were related.
The samples were sealed and couriered to the lab in Cape Town, but it would only be possible to match the mothers' DNA once a complete profile was obtained from one of the bones.
Ruda: 'In the midst of this waiting game we again approached Fiona Harvey's mother for hair. Even one strand would be enough for Danie to do a test. We were lucky. Fiona's mother had kept her daughter's favourite toy and on close inspection she found one hair.'
The hair was fine and hardly visible. Did it indeed belong to Fiona? And would it be enough to trace her?
Joan Horn's mom had only her schoolbooks left, but she allowed us to go through them and amazingly, we found a single hair between the pages.
This new sample material was again sent to Danie Krugel and he picked up signals for each of the hairs. It lead to the same site in Capital Park, Pretoria.
Danie: 'The one showed me a clear signal on the right hand side as we enter next to the big tree and the other one about 150m from here. Then I went to Gert van Rooyen's house and I got a signal from the house to this area just to double-check over the distance of 2km.'
Ruda: 'In the interim Danie was also asked to assist the police in Brandfort in the Free State after a five-year-old-girl went missing. He found little Naledi Ntebele's body within twenty minutes.'
The story made headlines across the country and once again people demanded that Danie should get involved with the Van Rooyen case.
Ruda: 'With no conclusive results, we couldn't reveal anything yet. We had to wait another three months, but the wait was worth it.'
When the results were finally made available to us, we were amazed at the implications of the findings.
From the bones that were tested the laboratory had identified the DNA of six different humans, four males and two females.
Dr Marx: 'We accept that the DNA was isolated from those bones is from human origin. Therefore those bones are human.'
However, the DNA from the bones was simply too degraded and incomplete to make a conclusive match with the DNA of the mothers.
But that doesn't mean it's the end of the road.
Dr Marx: 'When does one decide that you have a DNA profile that is workable? When you have exhausted all the avenues you can think of. We have not reached that stage yet. We would like to get the perfect DNA profile and that is what we are working to.'
Ruda: 'In fact there is enough compelling evidence to continue the DNA tests. Danie's technology found a missing child in Brandfort and it's been reported that he has found several others. He indicated a plausible area for the crime scene. We did find human remains there, two of which are female.'
Danie: 'My equipment shows me it is here. They have found human remains more than one. They have found human remains. They have found female remains and they only searched a small area where I showed and up until now they have got already this discovery.'
Ruda: 'Given our commitment to report our findings to the authorities, we now need to ask them to take the matter further.'
Part 5
Last night we showed our programme to immediate family members of the missing girls. It was an emotional experience for all involved. As the story unfolded, 18 years of anguish surfaced. They were stunned by the revelation that the remains we found were a mere six blocks from Van Rooyen's house.
Babs Wessels (Mother of Yolanda): 'My child is dead ' she is not alive anymore. I am sorry. I know it. I can feel it. If she ever comes back then God gave me a bonus.'
Noreen Breeds (Mother of Tracey-Lee): 'I often wish that I had the daughter to shop with, to do the little things with that I have never had the privilege of doing.'
We were surprised at the anger that surfaced immediately after the viewing. It was aimed at the police.
Linette van der Lingen (Mother of Odette): 'I want to know where is our children's stuff. They have lost it. They couldn't even tell me the docket number.'
Noreen: 'When my brother went to look for Tracey's file he was told that it had been stolen out of the investigating officer's car. Everything was hidden and I kept on asking him why there were so many cover-ups going on. At the end of the day one of the policeman turned around and said: 'You know what, I am sorry to have to say it, but it is the truth.''
Supporting the families through the trauma were psychologists, Dr Renee van Heerden and Dorianne Cara Weil ' better known as 'Dr D' ' who counselled them afterwards.
For years Babs Wessels believed her daughter, Yolanda, was no longer alive, but she says the programme helped her to finally get closure.
Babs: You will always think of it, of your child, it will never leave you. Just that you have an answer, that's what's most important.'
Natasha Smuts has blamed herself for the last 18 years for her sister, Odette Boucher's disappearance. There was childish rivalry between the two, which led to feelings of guilt.
Natasha Smuts (Sister of Odette): 'Because I would dream that she is angry with me and I pleaded for her forgiveness and it is just not going to happen. I have guilt I suppose.'
While Natasha still has to make peace with herself, her mother Linette feels the new evidence has helped.
Linette: 'It will make a difference, yes, because everyday you go to work and carry it inside you. It is raw.'
Kobie Wapenaar says she is moving towards acceptance that her daughter, Anne-Marie, may never return.
Kobie Wapenaar (Mother of Anne-Marie): 'If you think of all the research that's been done, then you have to agree with the probability that there's no more hope they'll still be found alive.'
Joan Horn's mother says she now has a sense of relief.
Ansie Horn (Mother of Joan): 'It's a path you walk. Many things happen on that path. Every time other children disappear or something happens it affects you emotionally. I think it will always remain emotional for us. It makes no difference if the bones are found or if we have closure, one would always feel the pain of others because you've been through it.'
And for Noreen Breeds there can finally be closure around her daughter, Tracey-Lee's disappearance.
Noreen: 'It is going to bring about peace in our lives. I think it is going to help all of us just feel that we can at last just say, 'Rest in peace kiddo'.'
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