Search for Gert van Rooyen’s victims at KZN beach continues

The executive producer of Fokus believes two of the girls could be buried at the site being excavated at the Blythedale Beach.

Alet Wright, the executive producer of SATV programme, Fokus, initiated the latest dig. Picture: North Coast Courier

An SAPS forensic team on Wednesday began excavating a site on Blythedale Beach in KwaZulu-Natal, which is thought to be a burial site for girls kidnapped by paedophile Gert van Rooyen in the 1980s, reports the North Coast Courier.

Day two of the excavation continued on Thursday. Alet Wright, the executive producer of SATV programme, Fokus, initiated the latest dig.

Van Rooyen and his girlfriend, Joey Haarhoff, were accused of a spree of child kidnappings more than 30 years ago.

In 1979, he abducted two girls, aged 10 and 13, and forced them to perform sexual acts, but released them a day later in Pretoria.

He was arrested and convicted on charges of abduction‚ sexual assault and common assault of the girls. He served three years of a four-year sentence.

This is the second time police have excavated in Blythedale after they found out Van Rooyen and Haarhoff had spent a weekend there.

In 2007, there was renewed interest after a set of adolescent bones was found on the beach near Umdloti, about 500m away from a holiday resort that Van Rooyen and Haarhoff were known to have visited.

However, DNA testing did not identify any of their victims.

In 1990, Van Rooyen shot Haarhoff and committed suicide after another of their victims escaped in Pretoria.

The bodies of their victims were never found.

Wright said full details about the search would be revealed in the Fokus broadcast on Sunday night.

Watch the North Coast Courier‘s interview with Wright: