Police are still struggling to make headway in the case of a Boksburg teenager who went missing in 2016.
The victim, who was 18 at the time, was reported missing after apparently being snatched from her Angelo informal settlement home by a gang of criminals.
She was last heard yelling for help.
Police’s preliminary investigations indicated she was abducted by a group of foreigners, who under mysterious circumstances allegedly raped and killed their victim before dumping her body in a nearby disused mineshaft.
The investigating team followed all leads and worked tirelessly until they, within hours after the case was reported, traced and arrested the suspects. It was reported that the suspects allegedly initially told the police the woman’s body was dumped down the mineshaft.
This prompted an intensive search and rescue operation in the shaft, but the body was not located.
The suspects were released after the cases against them were dismissed on legal technicalities, following the fruitless missions to find the girl’s body.
Through all the years, the police rescue unit has been battling to find the girl in the mineshaft, and police have identified this as one of the factors halting the progress to bring the difficult case to a close.
According to Boksburg SAPS spokesperson Sgt Ntsako Ledwaba, a lot of resources from different units had been put in place to search for the girl and solve the crime. However, the dangerous condition of the mineshaft had been preventing the rescuers from locating the body, which delays the progress of the investigation.
“Our teams tried more than once to look for the body underground. An application to carry out a third underground operation was sent to the Department of The Department of Mineral Resource and Energy (DMRE), but it’s been decline due to safety concerns,” explained Ledwaba.
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Also Read: Still no sign of abducted, gang-raped and possibly murdered girl
