9-year-old allegedly abducted and killed

The disappearance and subsequent discovery of the body of a nine-year-old girl in the Golgotha area of Thohoyandou has raised fears in the community that a serial killer and rapist could be on the loose in the area.

Last Wednesday, young Alice Mashau (8) of Shayandima went to school, the Nazarene School of Natural Sciences at P West Thohoyandou. Little did her parents know that it would be her last day. After school, she vanished.

Her parents, Ms Thifhelimbilu Mashau, and her father, Mmbulaheni, searched the school premises without any success. They were later joined by relatives and sympathisers, but their search proved fruitless.

A passerby found her lifeless body between two heaps of sand in Golgotha on Thursday. The incident has not only brought anguish and sadness to the parents and family of the dead girl. They have many questions which remain unanswered.

The family is not happy with the treatment they received from the local Thohoyandou police, whom they accuse of dragging their feet and doing nothing to help them trace their daughter. Ms Mashau, who works in Thohoyandou not far from the school, said they changed to the school because of promises of after-school  care at Nazarene. “She has been attending the school for six months now and all seemed good. On the fateful day, I only found her brother. He was crying and told me that his sister had gone to the toilet but never come back.”

She said she had arrived at the school after four and that the only people who had been present at the school had been the cleaners, who had been doing their job but not taking care of the children. “We searched everywhere at the school, but my daughter was nowhere to be found.”

The girl’s father said when they heard about the body of a girl, they rushed to the scene “and what we found there was shocking. We recognized our lifeless daughter. She was still wearing her school uniform, but her socks and school bag were missing. We saw burn marks on her body and toilet paper in her genitals,” he said.

Rev Malindi Mudau, who is in charge of the mission where the school is situated, said they took the issue of security at the school very seriously. “There are always people here looking after the children until all of them are taken by their parents. What happened is most unfortunate and was not expected," he said.

The body of the little girl was found near the spot where a badly injured student nurse from Univen was recently found. The student is receiving treatment in Polokwane.

These are not the only incidents where people were violently attacked in the Golgotha area. Members of the community are fearing that a serial killer might possibly be active in the area. Recent unsolved violent crimes in the area include:

Tshililo Ndou (9), who was found killed on 27 April 2014. She was a pupil at Tshishonga Primary School; Univen nursing student Shudufhadzo Thagisa was attacked in the early hours of 26 May on her way to her practicals. She was seriously injured in the attack; a security guard was killed next to the Nazarene spaza shop; a police reservist attached to the Thohoyandou police was attacked next to the local park and was seriously injured; a granny was gang-raped and her hand was chopped off with a panga.

Limpopo police spokesperson Brig Hangwani Mulaudzi said there was no serial killer in the area. "It is just that there are two cases with the same modus operandi, but that doesn’t mean it is a serial killer," said Mulaudzi. He advised the family to lodge a complaint with the station commander or cluster commander "and they will investigate their claims, and steps will be taken if needs be," he said.

Date:04 July 2014

By: Elmon Tshikhudo

Elmon Tshikhudo started off as a photographer. He developed an interest in writing and started submitting articles to local as well as national publications. He became part of the Limpopo Mirror family in 2005 and was a permanent part of the news team until 2019.

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