Today a year ago, Louise de Waal was murdered and her body burnt.
Three weeks ago, her killer, the infamous Sunday Rapist, was jailed for the murder of the 16-year-old schoolgirl and the rape and sexual assault of several other victims.
By South African standards, justice was fast, and fitting, because Johannes Jacobus Steyn, 36, won’t be allowed out for at least the next 80 years. Judge Sita Kolbe gave him five life sentences and an additional 170 years inside when she convicted him on 33 of 37 charges ranging from murder to culpable homicide, rape, sexual assault, kidnapping and attempted kidnapping.
Steyn killed Louise, while another victim, Lazanne Farmer, died while trying to escape from his moving bakkie.
Steyn’s modus operandi was to sexually molest or rape girls on Sundays when he had told his wife he would be performing community service at a Krugersdorp hospital, following his conviction in 2007 for molesting children.
Louise’s mother Shireen hopes he’ll never be released. Judge Kolbe said in her judgment she doubted Steyn could ever be rehabilitated. De Waal hopes Steyn will be killed in jail.
She had to sit in court and listen to the horrendous details of what Steyn forced Louise to do to him, and then hear the forensic details of how Louise was still alive when Steyn set her alight.
If De Waal could, she would kill him herself, not before hurting him as badly as Steyn hurt her family. She hopes other prisoners will get to him.
The murder destroyed De Waal’s life and almost imploded the larger family. “I lost my daughter, I lost my job and then I lost my home,” De Waal said on Thursday. She has since got a job through wellwishers and supporters, but she has had to move in with her sister.
For all of them, the pain never eases. The build-up to the anniversary today has been particularly hard.
“We’re all taking it very badly, my mother, my sister, my elder daughter. We all cry at different times. We sit quietly in different corners. We’re short-tempered with each other; we know that if anyone says anything, we might snap.”
The worst thing for De Waal is the emptiness and the immediacy of what happened.
It’s a year today since Steyn abducted Louise on the way to Hoërskool Die Burger on the West Rand, took her to his home, raped her and then took her to Magaliesburg, where he burnt her body.
All De Waal has left is an album of pictures and her daughter’s belly ring. “It feels like it happened yesterday, not a year ago. I feel incredible longing and anger.” Not even fronting up to Steyn helped.
“I’m a very quiet person, and that particular day , I felt I needed to face him. I needed him to know that I was Louise’s mother and that he had killed my daughter. I felt better for getting it off my chest, but I just want to kill him now, I want to hurt him the way he has hurt me and my family.
“People ask me if I’m bitter. Yes I am, he took away my life, my little girl who was the life and soul of the party, into whose life we had all placed so much hope.”
Like her greatest supporter Denise Goldin, whose actor son Brett was killed by gangsters in Cape Town in 2006, De Waal intends doing everything possible to ensure Steyn never gets out on parole. “I’ll never forgive him. He’ll never make parole. I’ll be at every parole hearing to make sure of that.”
On Thursday night, she slept at her daughter Jessica’s house. Today they were due to plant a lemon tree in Jessica’s garden. “Louise loved lemons. I just want to be able to sit back quietly and watch this tree grow.”
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