UPDATE: Mystery still looms over teen’s horror death
An unknown woman told him how Smit died, including details that her throat was slit and her hands were hacked off.
The brutal rape and murder of schoolgirl Anika Smit remain a mystery – more than nine years later.
This as the inquest into her death continued at the Pretoria North Magistrate Court on Tuesday.
In his return to the stand, the then 17-year-old’s friend Jean du Plessis told the court he learned of Smit’s death by phone while he and a friend were at a local pub and grill.
He later revealed it was an unknown woman who told him how Smit died, including details that her throat was slit and her hands were hacked off and nowhere to be found.
When prosecutor Tanya Carstens asked why he did not ask the unknown woman how she knew this, Du Plessis said he was “too shocked” at the time.
ALSO READ: OPVOLG: Anika ‘het voor die tyd geweet hoe sy gaan sterf’
While struggling to recall details, including those on a police statement reportedly signed by him, he did recall his interaction with Smit’s father at Smit’s house.
Du Plessis said he asked the teen’s father whether he was “okay” and he apparently replied by saying the house was deurmekaar [messy].
In the previous court sitting in April, Du Plessis revealed Smit said she knew “how and when she would die”.
The slain teen was killed and mutilated in her father’s Theresa Park home.
Andre van Wyk was arrested in September 2016 for the murder after he gave himself over to police.
In August 2018, charges against him were however conditionally withdrawn because of a lack of evidence.
Police have thus far been unable to gather enough evidence to prosecute anyone else in the case.
Also involved in the investigation into her murder were her father Johan Smit, her mother Charlotte Eksteen, ex-boyfriend Nico Venter and Damian Treeby.
ALSO READ: UPDATE: Anika Smit murder ‘witness’ challenged in court
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