Tazne van Wyk murder accused changes his story

MOYHDIAN Pangkaeker yesterday returned to the stand, abandoning his fez, black jacket and woolly gloves for a fresher grey top, padded green vest and jeans, but even a new look could not disguise the different versions of events he told the court.

Pangkaeker faces charges of rape, murder, kidnapping and mutilating a corpse after 8-year-old Tazne van Wyk’s remains were found in a stormwater drain off the N1 in Worcester, two weeks after her disappearance from her home in Clare Street, Elsies River, on February 7, 2020.

Yesterday, Pangkaeker explained that even though he left school in

Grade 7, (previously he said Grade 8), he was practically illiterate and could not read or write.

He said that the four foreign nationals who abducted him and Tazne were drug dealers. But when advocate Lenro Badenhorst put to him that they were not very “professional” drug dealers because they didn’t know where the drop was, Pangkaeker said they also used their phone for directions.

He stuck to his version that he had been on his way to mosque when the taxi drove up to him and blocked him off. But this time he said that he did indeed tell them where he was going because it was obvious in his attire. Last week Pangkaeker said he didn’t tell them where he was going because it wasn’t their business.

He made yet another revelation, telling the court that he was on his way to Port Elizabeth, when he left Clare Street in a hurry on February 7, 2020 – the day Tazne went missing.

Throughout the cross-examination Badenhorst questioned him on why he did not ask Tazne who her parents were or attempt to have her brought back to them but all he could say was, “Everything happened so quick.”

He referred to Tazne as the “little girl”, as if he had forgotten her name.

Advocate Badenhorst questioned Pangkaeker about his sex drive and physique, which for the first time did not seem to be waning as before, but Pangkaeker tried at every turn to avoid answering and only said, “that was not part of the conversation”.