Murder most foul

TODAY Valencia Farmer would be a 30-year-old woman, perhaps married with her own children and maybe still helping her mom, Sylvia, around their home in Eerste River.

But, when she was only 14, Valencia was gang-raped in a derelict house in Eerste River in the early hours of June 27, 1999, before she was stabbed 53 times, had her throat slit and was left for dead.

Naked and bleeding, she managed to crawl to the front of the house where she was spotted early that morning.

When called to the scene, Sylvia found Valencia on her knees, holding her slit throat. She comforted her dying daughter, laying her head down on her chest, stroking her hair and reassuring her that she was with her.

Valencia was taken to hospital and, with the last bit of energy she had left, managed to identify her attackers. She died the next day.

Three men were convicted and sent to prison but, last year, a fourth man, Elmario Maasdorp was arrested and charged with her rape and murder.

Yesterday, Maasdorp, who was 21 at the time of the crime, entered into a plea agreement, admitting to intending to sexually assault the teenager and to stabbing her with a knife several times.

He was sentenced to 23 years in jail for his part in the teenager’s rape and murder.

Maasdorp has to serve two-thirds – or about 16 years of his prison term – before he is eligible for parole.

THAT is small comfort to Sylvia Farmer who has been in a prison of her own for 16 years, waiting for answers to her daughter’s murder. “I never had peace of mind after what happened as I always had questions,” she told the Cape Argus at the time of Maasdorp’s arrest last year.

The matter of the murder of Valencia Farmer may have finally been laid to rest, but her name should forever give us pause as we acknowledge the 500 000 women who are raped in this country every year.

But let us remember Valencia not as a victim but as a fighter.