[Image: Grok]
The man accused of the grotesque rape and murder of his son’s eight-year-old friend during a sleepover is once again trying to claw his way out of jail, applying for bail for a second time as he prepares to stand trial in the Western Cape High Court.
This 49-year-old man from Kraaifontein – whose very name is being protected solely for the sake of his (now) 14-year-old son, a key witness – is already known to the system. His first bid for bail was denied in the Blue Downs Regional Court after his arrest in 2023, yet here he is again, dragging the justice system back into a nightmare.
He’s expected to go on trial later this year, with October 24 marked as a date for his new bail hearing, and the possibility of setting the wheels in motion for the full trial. That he’s even allowed to apply again is nauseating to those who’ve stood with the grieving family of young Daniel Jamneck.

“I am very upset and angry that criminals have a right to redo a bail application and it seems they have more rights than law abiding citizens. I am outraged.”
The Cape Argus reached out to the National Prosecuting Authority, who have yet to comment – probably still processing the horror of what the State intends to prove.
According to prosecutors, on June 15, 2023, while Daniel Jamneck lay innocently asleep beside the accused on a double bed in Peerless Park North, Kraaifontein, the man allegedly strangled the child to death. His own son slept just metres away, unaware of the horror unfolding beneath him.
The accused, a tenant and employed at the time, had welcomed Daniel into his home under the guise of a sleepover, which is a setting that should’ve been safe, but instead became one of pure depravity.
This man, who has not yet pleaded, carries with him the filth of a prior rape conviction – a history that should’ve barred him from any proximity to children. But worse still is the unspeakable brutality described by the State: teeth marks and abrasions on Daniel’s genitals, adult public hair found in the child’s anus and penis, and nail marks across the boy’s neck—evidence that leaves no room for doubt about the depravity of what happened.
And somehow, he had been out on parole, walking free after a 2005 rape conviction of an adult woman, handed a pitiful three-year correctional services sentence after a plea deal.
Now, with another bail application looming, many are left questioning: how many more chances does a convicted predator get before the system finally slams the door shut?
[Source: Cape Argus]