Mxit messages emerge at Anika Smit’s inquest
Inquest determining Anika Smit's death begins, 5 years later.
An inquest into the death of a Pretoria teenage girl heard on Tuesday of Mxit messages sent by a school friend, asking another boy about killing rituals.
The message read in part: “i want 2 c a persne dead.. do u have a ritual 2 kil.”
According news reports, it was sent via Mxit by a school friend of slain 17-year-old Anika Smit. Her throat was slit and her hands chopped off when she was killed in her family’ home in the north of Pretoria in 2010.
This same boy spent his spare time dissecting snakes and then freezing them. The possibility of the occult being behind her killing was suggested during the inquest into her death in Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
Prosecutor Tania Carstens asked the mother of a boy, who police questioned after her murder, if she knew about Mxit messages between her son, who called himself “Vampire” on the chat app, and another boy called “Satan’s Eyes”.
None of the witnesses or their children are allowed to be named under a court instruction.
Part of a message from “Vampire” to “Satan’s Eyes” read: “Will you give me one ritual.” He gave a long reply about burying a shoebox with a doll inside at a cemetery.
Carstens told “Vampire’s” mother: “That is from your [son’s] phone.”
The mother denied any knowledge of this, except for his user name.
She said he was just like any 18-year-old who thought he knew better, always wanting to know why he was not allowed more.
The mother said she knew the warning signs for a child in need of intervention and her son did not show any of these.
Anika had stayed home from school with an ear infection on March 10, 2010.
When her father Johan arrived at their home in Theresa Park, he found her raped, her throat slit, and her hands chopped off and missing.
Her boyfriend, Nico Venter, was charged, but the charges were later withdrawn.
The inquest has been instituted to try and gather more information about events before and after her death.
The mother testifying on Tuesday said her son had a scalpel-like knife which he used to dissect snakes then freeze them. He also milked them for venom.
He spent almost every day at his girlfriend’s house after school.
His mother said she would have known if her son had been up to anything strange.
She was quoted as saying: “I myself like Vampire movies, a good thriller, but that does not mean I am a Satanist. You don’t say to someone you want to drink blood, like people allege that [my son] did.”
Magistrate Pierre Wessels asked why she had given her children the names she did, with him commenting that two of the names could mean “the devil” or “demon”, and one was a horror film title.
She replied that she chose the names because she thought they were “nice”.
The mother said she dropped her son off at school on the say of Anika’s murder, but he came home at around 9:00.
He had done so before as he did not like to use public toilets and would sometimes call her from a Pick n Pay near the school and ask her to fetch him so that he could go home and use the toilet.
Then she would take him back to school. Sometimes he also bunked school, she said.
On the day of Anika’s murder, he arrived home and said he wanted to sell his violin so that he could buy his girlfriend a toy.
The mother said after the murder her son was pulled out of school by the police in full view of everyone for questioning. Other pupils were questioned discreetly.
She was shown pictures of a young man holding a crucifix and a sword and was criticised for not being able to say outright that it was not her son.
The magistrate asked: “You have never seen anything in his bedrooms, something demonic or something?”
“No,” she said.
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