Reader provides clues in Gumtree case

Published Sep 14, 2011

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Tanya Farber

A Cape Times reader has come forward with a piece of the puzzle in the mystery surrounding a woman who is fighting for her life and who was allegedly gang-raped after responding to an advert for casual labour on popular classifieds site Gumtree.

A reader who did not want to be named still had a copy of the advert in her e-mails as she had sent it to various family members last month who she felt might benefit from it.

“I read the horrific story on the front page of the Cape Times last week, and I didn’t even have to think about it.

“It sent chills down my spine,” she said.

The advert had been removed from Gumtree within two days of being posted, which meant that neither the Cape Times nor anyone close to the victim had been able to scrutinise it for any clues.

The Gumtree website offers users the option to e-mail any advert to a friend.

The automated message then sends a link to the posting, but if it has already been taken off the site, it says: “Sorry, that advert has been removed.”

It was fortunate, therefore, that the reader had copied and pasted the contents of the advert into the body of the mail as it meant she still had a copy.

“Every detail in the story was so similar to what I had seen in the advert.

“I am on Gumtree every day for hours, and read hundreds of job postings on the site because there is always someone in the family looking for work and I am also an HR officer so part of my job is to look at jobs coming in.

“But as soon as I saw the story, I remembered that particular advert,” she said.

She said there was nothing strange about the advert itself and she had passed it on to various family members, some of whom were students.

“It sounded perfect for them,” she said. “It was a night job, it was casual work, and we live in the area.

“So you can imagine, my blood ran cold when I saw what happened to the victim as it could have happened to anyone.

“Luckily, nobody in my family responded.”

The advert contains no contact details, and would only have allowed for the Gumtree-enabled e-mail response option.

“When my father-in-law noticed that the copy I sent him had no direct contact details on it, he went to look for the advert directly on Gumtree.

“That was two days later but it had already been removed. They must have had the posting up for a very short time.”

The Cape Times reported yesterday that police had confirmed that the case had been reported to them on Sunday evening, exactly three weeks since the incident.

The case was reported by friends of the victim as she is in Karl Bremer hospital fighting for her life.

The victim’s friends had also looked in vain for the online advert after the tragedy took place, and had tried to put the pieces together themselves.

They recalled the victim saying that the advert said you must be able to “count well”, and that she had said the stock-take would take place at Pick n Pay in Observatory.

The advert does not refer to Pick n Pay, however, and her friends believe that she was told it was Pick n Pay after she had responded by e-mail to the advert.

The reader who submitted the advert told the Cape Times she also assumed it was Pick n Pay when she saw the advert as it included a picture of the inside of a supermarket, and named Observatory as the suburb.

Gumtree, in the meantime, has said it will comply with the police to bring the criminals to justice.

“This is truly a horrible story,” the support team wrote in an e-mail, “and we hope that the culprits are apprehended.”

“We co-operate fully with the authorities and will provide any information that is available in our records.

“The proper procedure for this is to log a ticket through our help desk. The police can select the law enforcement inquiry option.”

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