His murderer is in prison, but his family is still searching
THE Lee Mentoor who stares from the poster is older, his forehead has broadened and he carries the casual smile of a school boy.
Here Liyaqat Mentoor, better known as Lee, is 7 years old, and if he looks anything like this, it means he is alive.
The law has declared Lee dead, murdered by his mother’s boyfriend, Onke Mashinini.
But Lee’s body has yet to be found and his family and Wendy Pascoe, the private investigator they appointed, believe he might not be dead.
In the hope that someone might recognise the boy, Pascoe recently approached the Italian Missing Children’s Institute, a non-profit organisation that helps law enforcement and missing children organisations around the world.
The founder of the institute, forensic anthropologist Laura Donato, compiled the age-progression identikit of Lee.
“You send a photo of the mother, the father and the siblings,” said Pascoe, who has collaborated with the institute in the search for other missing South Africans. “From this she will compile an identikit of what the person will look like now. Lee’s identikit is so close that he looks like his little stepbrother and she didn’t even have a photograph of the stepbrother.”
Mashinini is serving a life sentence for Lee’s murder after the boy was reported missing on March 16, 2018. At the time Lee was 3.
Over the following months there were large-scale searches across the West Rand. Police used helicopters, cadaver dogs and hundreds of volunteers. The area of interest was Roodekrans, just kilometres from Mashinini’s home.
Mashinini told investigators that on the day of Lee’s disappearance, he had been baby-sitting the boy. Kaylah, Lee’s mother, had gone to work.
Mashinini said he had walked with Lee to Kaylah’s mother’s house.
When they arrived at the house, Mashinini claimed two people told him they were relatives of Lee and bundled the boy into a silver VW Polo and drove off. He insists that Lee is still alive.
At the time, Lee was wearing a grey jacket, black tracksuit pants and short black boots.
But Mashinini’s story kept changing and flecks of Lee’s blood were found on his shoes.
In 2019 in the South Gauteng High Court, Judge Daniel Mogotsi told Mashinini that he had shown no remorse throughout the trial. He sentenced him to life for premeditated murder.
So far, searches have revealed no traces of Lee, but during the investigation suspicious cellphone activity in the morning, two days before the boy was declared missing, appeared to be a promising lead.
At 2am on March 14, a cellphone Mashinini was believed to be using was traced to the parking area of the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden.
Cellphone records showed that he moved to an open piece of veld in Roodekrans. CCTV footage at the car park was checked but nothing was found. A SAPS K9 unit swept the area without success.
Since Mashinini’s conviction, Pascoe has continued to work the case.
In March, the Mentoor family held a vigil and asked the Roodepoort community to join them to light a candle to honour Lee’s memory on the third anniversary of his disappearance.
“The family are still desperate for answers. I will continue the search, I will not give up on Lee,” says Pascoe.
● Anyone with information on the case can send information to MySAPS (App) or 08600 10111; or to the Pascoe Investigations Team at 072 649 7683/ 081 010 3888.