-
2 days ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Vincent Cruywagen
MISSING CHILD Raquel ‘Kelly’ Smith, mother of missing girl Joshlin Smith, in the dock in the Western Cape High Court sitting in Saldanha.
-
6 days ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Vincent Cruywagen
MISSING CHILD (From left): The three accused, Jacquen Appollis, Steveno van Rhyn and Racquel Smith.
-
1 week ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Vincent Cruywagen
MISSING CHILD Accused in the Joshlin Smith trial Steveno van Rhyn.
-
1 week ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Vincent Cruywagen
One of the three accused in the Joshlin Smith trial has admitted to lying about key details in his statement to police, including his claim that he took Joshlin to a supposed sangoma’s house. Jacquen Appollis, one of the three accused in the disappearance of Joshlin Smith, has revealed under cross-examination that details in his warning statement, including the claim that he took the then-six-year-old girl to a sangoma’s house, were fabricated.
-
1 week ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Vincent Cruywagen
Appollis claims that before his statement, he was allegedly tortured by police and a black bag placed over his head to elicit a confession in the Joshlin Smith case. Jacquen Appollis took the stand in the Joshlin Smith trial on Friday, 11 April, during the trial-within-a-trial to provide his account of how he gave his statement to police in the weeks after the then six-year-old went missing. He alleges that police used violence and coercion.
-
2 weeks ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Vincent Cruywagen
More than a year has passed since Joshlin Smith went missing from Middelpos informal settlement in Saldanha Bay. Local mothers still live in fear. When the Joshlin Smith trial began in Saldanha Bay at the beginning of March 2025, residents flocked to the court hearings hoping to hear where the little girl was.
-
2 weeks ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Vincent Cruywagen
Steveno van Rhyn, one of the three accused in the Saldahna Bay kidnapping of Joshlin Smith, claims that what was contained in his statement was not his account, and that police had told him what to say. Nobahle Mkabayi, Steveno van Rhyn’s lawyer, confronted Sergeant Dawid Johannes Fortuin with this version of events during cross-examination in the trial-within-a-trial hearing at the Western Cape High Court in Saldanha Bay on Tuesday, 8 March 2025.
-
2 weeks ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Vincent Cruywagen
A coordinated strategy of questioning Jacquen Appollis and Steveno van Rhyn, accused in the kidnapping case, led to the breakthrough. Sergeant Dawid Johannes Fortuin, attached to the anti-kidnapping unit, testified that the strategy used by the investigating team to persuade the two accused, Jacquen Appollis and Steveno van Rhyn, to turn against Racquel “Kelly” Smith, the mother of missing Joshlin, was a breakthrough in the case.
-
2 weeks ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Vincent Cruywagen
Patriotic Alliance leader Gayton McKenzie used Facebook to spread inaccurate news and influencers posted details on TikTok, all of which hampered police work. The State’s star witness in the Joshlin Smith human trafficking trial, Laurentia Lombaard, testified last week that her boyfriend, Ayanda Letoni, was abducted by a group of men who allegedly took him to the police station against his will.
-
2 weeks ago | 
dailymaverick.co.za | Vincent Cruywagen
Jacquen Appollis, one of the three accused in Joshlin Smith’s disappearance, claimed in a statement that he and his co-accused, Steveno van Rhyn, left Joshlin with a person only known as ‘Makalima’ on the day she went missing on 19 February 2024. Judge Nathan Erasmus ordered that any publishing of the statement be prefaced with the knowledge that the accused would aver that this portion did not come from him.
