Pretoria - Little Jasmin Pretorius, 4, dearly loved and trusted her uncle who raped her before strangling her to death with his hands.
This is according to Jasmin’s mother, Sasha Bam, who took the stand in the high court in Pretoria on Tuesday.
She testified in aggravation of sentence after her child’s rapist and killer Sarel du Toit pleaded guilty to the charges.
According to the doctor who did the post-mortem, the child’s injuries showed she had put up a struggle.
Judge Mohamed Ismail said the pictures depicting her lifeless body “were not pleasant at all to look at”.
Bam testified that Jasmin often saw Du Toit when she visited her father, Morné Pretorius, the half brother of the killer.
She said the child was always playful towards Du Toit and she had no reason not to trust him.
Jasmin and her older sister were visiting her father shortly after Christmas 2013, when she was raped and murdered. This happened in the Brakpan flat which Pretorius and Du Toit shared with their mother.
A district surgeon testified that the injuries suffered by Jasmin were extremely brutal and some of the worst he had ever encountered in a rape victim.
Dr Forunato Baccia said that from the injuries to her private parts, it was clear that Jasmin was repeatedly and forcefully raped. She had a tear stretching from her private parts to her rectum.
He added this must have been excruciatingly painful and he could not imagine how she could have slept through this, as claimed by Du Toit. “She would have woken up from the pain,” he said.
The doctor equated the pain to that of a “woman giving birth to a big baby”.
Baccia said Jasmin had bruises next to her left eye, possibly caused by a finger pressing down very hard, and another bruise on her chin and there was blood inside her mouth and nose.
Jasmin also had several distinct bruises around her neck. She was strangled to death.
Bam wiped tears from her eyes as the doctor described her daughter’s agony before she died, while Du Toit assumed his usual position - sitting with his head bowed low.
Confessing to the rape and murder, Du Toit said he and Pretorius went out drinking that night, while Jasmin was sleeping on her father’s bed. When they came back after midnight, Pretorius spent the night at his girlfriend’s house.
Du Toit said he went to the bedroom where the child was sleeping and “played” with her. He then left, but turned back and carried the sleeping child to his bedroom.
He said he raped her while she was asleep and when she woke up, he strangled her to death as he was afraid she would make a noise. He then stuffed her body under his bed.
Du Toit joined the 12-hour search, and at some stage sat on the bed under which he had stuffed her body. He only pointed it out to the police late in the afternoon.
He wrote two letters that night - one each to his mother and the child’s father - in which he said he was terribly sorry for what he had done.
He wrote in a childlike handwriting riddled with spelling mistakes, that he would take whatever came his way.
His advocate asked for mercy and said Du Toit must not be “sacrificed on the altar of revenge”.
The defence conceded that the level of aggression used by Du Toit, as described by the doctor, was upsetting.
The State said he deserved nothing less than two life sentences.
He will be sentenced on Friday.
Pretoria News