Two held after daughter found dead in river
POLICE arrested a Grassy Park couple on a charge of child neglect after their missing three-year-old daughter’s body was found in a river.
They are due to appear in Wynberg Magistrate’s Court today. Spotted by a police helicopter scouting the area yesterday, it is the second body found in the area in two weeks.
Olivia van Voeght was last seen by her parents at their home in Stevens Road about 7pm on Tuesday. It is believed she drowned in a river just off Fishermans Walk Street, Zeekoeivlei, after she and her niece went playing there.
On Wednesday, police with sniffer dogs, 45 neighbourhood watch and community members did an extensive search. More than 200 flyers were handed out.
Olivia’s stepsister Dorra Joemat, 23, said Olivia and her three-year-old son Mario went to play at the river. “He came back home without saying where Olivia was. Usually Olivia stays with her nanny. It did not bother me at first, but later the evening I called her mother and asked where she was. They knew nothing about her,” Joemat said.
She said they contacted police and reported her missing. “On Wednesday the police contacted us and we went out to search for Olivia. We did not find her. Yesterday, I asked my son if he knew where Olivia was. He told me ‘ sy het in die
water geval (she fell in the water)’,” she said.
About a hour later she got a call from police informing her a body was found. “We rushed to the river and found police already there. I looked at her clothes and immediately knew that it was Olivia. She last had her pink top on,” Joemat said.
“I could not stop crying. She was our little girl, very cheeky with her parents, but a lovely child. She loved playing in the field near the river,” she said.
Joemat said her parents, aged 53 and 54, were taken into custody shortly after midday.
Meanwhile, the parents of Kiana Williams are still waiting for a post-mortem report on a child’s body that was found in an unfinished house in the area last month