[imagesource:news24]
Amy’Leigh de Jager’s parents are just happy to have their daughter safe and sound at home, but they must also feel a deep sense of betrayal.
Last week, it emerged that one of the people involved in the kidnapping was a teacher at Laerskool Kollegepark, where Amy’Leigh was snatched, and the teacher was also said to be “a very close family friend”.
Over the weekend, it has emerged that the 27-year-old teacher was actually the mastermind of the entire kidnapping, according to her father, who sent a voice note to a family member outlining her situation.
News24 reporting below:
In an attempt to pre-empt the imminent revelation of his daughter’s identity as one of those who were arrested, he sent the voice note, saying: “I just wanted to tell you, so that you don’t hear it from someone else – the mastermind behind the kidnapping of that little girl (Amy’Leigh) was my child. She organised the entire thing with the others, but she was the mastermind.
“They locked them up [on Wednesday] night. I didn’t know this, but she [uses] narcotics, and she needed money to pay the people (drug dealers). I just wanted to tell you so that you don’t get a shock when you hear that it was my child. So, the news has been broken and now you know. Have a good day.”
Angeline de Jager, Amy’Leigh’s mother (pictured above with the teacher, who cannot be named until she appears in court), often featured alongside the teacher in pictures on social media. In the aftermath of the kidnapping, the teacher went as far as to console Angeline, and send supportive voice notes. Again from News24:
The accused teacher then sent a series of voice notes to a WhatsApp group for parents, saying she was “as shocked” as they were and asking them to pray.
In her first voice note to parents, the teacher says, in Afrikaans: “We are okay, everyone in my class is safe. [The kidnapping] happened outside the school…as they were getting out of the car. It was a white Fortuner…the registration number appears to be blurred. All we can do now is pray that she is safe, wherever and whatever. I promise you I am guarding your children with my life. I’ll kill someone, hey…
“I’m just as stressed as you are,” she continues.
In a follow-up voice note, she says: “All we can do is pray. That is all we can do. We can only ask that the Lord protects [Amy’Leigh’].
All the while, she was allegedly the mastermind behind the whole thing and knew that Amy’Leigh was holed up in a dirty room with the kidnappers.
Today the teacher, alongside her two co-accused, will appear in Vanderbijlpark Magistrate’s Court, and the fact that Amy’Leigh has described her captors could prove tough for them to get around.
City Press reports that Amy’Leigh described the men who held her after her abduction as “a white oom and a black oom with dreadlocks”.
More information has also emerged regarding how Amy’Leigh was found, and by whom:
Hendrik Brandt (25) and Savannah Kriel (22) were on their way home from a pub at about 2am when they spotted the frightened girl on Heroult Street.
Amy’Leigh initially ran away from them, but they caught up to her.
Brandt said: “She said [the abductors] had dropped her off in the street while driving a white car with black stripes, and that it was as big as her mommy’s car inside.
“She said the men [who dropped her off] told her to go to a blue car parked on the street. They said her mommy was there, but she didn’t see a blue car and then the men sped off.”
Brandt and Kriel on Friday told City Press’ sister publication Rapport that they had heard on the news that a child had been abducted outside Laerskool Kollegepark and, when they saw the distraught girl on the street so late at night, they immediately suspected it was Amy’Leigh.
“When I picked her up and she said she’d been stolen from her mom, I was paralysed with shock,” said Brandt.
Heroult Street is a notoriously dangerous part of town.
“The other day, a guy near there was hit with a panga 36 times. I believe God made our paths cross,” said Brandt.
Brandt carried Amy’Leigh on his back for the four-kilometre walk to the police station, where her parents were waiting.
Finally, in the wake of a number of conspiracy theories doing the rounds on social media about the potential involvement of Amy’Leigh’s father in the kidnapping, her grandfather, Christo de Jager, has spoken out.
He penned an open letter in the community paper, which was reproduced by the Citizen. Here it is, in full:
“Dear South Africa and the world. My name is Christo de Jager and I am the Oupa of Amy’Leigh who was kidnapped on Monday.
“I have had a life of highlights and lowlights. Eight years ago I lost my wife to cancer and five months later I lost my eldest son.
“Monday, exactly eight years after my wife’s passing, I temporarily lost my granddaughter to the devil himself.
“However, thanks to God Almighty and the prayers of South Africa, she was returned to us. At that moment I was so proud to be a son of God and a citizen of South Africa. I was so grateful to each and every South African, black, white, coloured, Indian and all others not mentioned.
“Today I am still grateful to God Almighty but I am, however, so disappointed in the same South Africa that so unconditionally supported us throughout this ordeal. Because, whilst we are are still celebrating the glory and miracle of God, some of the very same South African people are making the most horrific and slanderous statements relating to the case. Statements that are based on assumptions and pure stupidity. Statements aimed at destroying families and the life of the very same child that they so intensely prayed for.
“Dear South Africa, please wait for the outcome. Refrain from making uninformed statements and allegations. The SAPS did their investigation thoroughly. Do you really think that if any of my children were implicated they would be roaming free?
“Some of the voice notes we received are an indication of how sick some of the so-called caring South Africans are.”
Once the accused have appeared in court today, they can be publicly named.
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