[Another extremely disgusting crime. It looks as if this is a crime among the coloured people in the Cape. The only thing these bastards need is to die swinging on the end of a rope – nothing else even comes close to what they really deserve for their hideous deeds. Jan]

The rape, sodomy and murder of nine-year-old Melissa Demas was so brutal that it prompted Western Cape authorities to start the “Hands Off Our Children” campaign.

Now, nearly four years after Melissa’s battered naked body was found near a Kraaifontein motor spares shop, her accused murderer has admitted that he raped the little girl – but claimed she said he could “try” having sex with her.

In disturbing evidence before the Cape High Court on Monday, factory worker Riaan Swartz, 24, described how he and another man – who he initially called “Elton” but later “Angelo” – had lured Melissa away from the street where she was playing with the promise of “something”.

Swartz said he had raped Melissa, who knew him as a friend and affectionately referred to him as “Tossy”, after a heavy alcohol and drug-taking session with his friends. He claimed his friends had also planned to rape the little girl, whom they had earlier sent to buy alcohol for them, but had decided he would be first.

Testifying before Judge Anton Veldhuizen, a dreadlocked Swartz said he had told Melissa “that I planned to have sex with her” before the rape.

“I took the deceased and I explained to her what would happen.

“There was a stage… where she said we can try,” he added.

After the rape, Swartz said Melissa had groaned in pain and made “heavy breathing sounds”.

“I did up my zip and walked away,” he said, later adding that Melissa was “still alive when I left her”. He said he had walked past “Angelo” on his way back to his friends, who were walking in Melissa’s direction.

Pathologist Deidre Abrahams earlier testified that Melissa’s body, which weighed 20kg, was found covered with cuts and bruises. Her left eye was swollen shut, her neck and buttocks were bruised, her nose was streaked with blood and her liver was ruptured. Abrahams said Melissa could have been strangled with her own skipping rope.

Although seven suspects, five of them minors, were arrested, they were released because of insufficient evidence.

DNA evidence found on a disposable nappy used to cover part of Melissa’s body connected Swartz to her rape and led to his arrest in Chatsworth, near Malmesbury, two years later. It emerged that he had asked to be transferred to another factory and had moved shortly after the murder.

This article was originally published on page 7 of Cape Argus on August 09, 2005

Source: Independent Online (IOL)
URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click…/p>