Cape Town - Jeremiah Ruiters’s father Wesley Timm described seeing a blood-stained rag on the floor and on the couch of Abigail Ruiters’s home on the day the toddler died.
Timm told the Western Cape High Court he had escorted police to fetch Jeremiah’s sisters, aged 8 and 5, at Ruiters’s home in Salmander Vlei, in Factreton. This is after the 18-month-old boy was declared dead at Kensington Clinic on June 12, 2017.
“The children were with Abigail’s cousin. I went to fetch them clothes.
“As we entered there were bloodied rags on the floor and couch and a piece of ribbon was covered in blood.”
The police declared it a crime scene.
A post-mortem report stated Jeremiah died of multiple injuries. The report indicated that Jeremiah had healing wounds from two or more weeks before his death and more recent wounds that he could have sustained 24 to 72 hours prior to his death.
Jeremiah’s mother Abigail Ruiters and her boyfriend Ameerudien Peters are on trial. Ruiters is charged with abuse and neglect; Peters with the toddler’s rape and murder.
Earlier that day, at Kensington Clinic, he was told by his mother that his son had died, Timm said. “It was a shock to me.”
He said he was shown a room by police where he could identify the child. He said in another room was Ruiters and her boyfriend with two police officers. He said the two were given a statement to the police.
“Abigail asked me what I was doing there and I indicated to the police that I am the child’s father. The one officer asked me isn’t Ameer the father, I said no,” said Timm.
Timm and Ruiters had been in a relationship for 11 to 12 years before they parted ways in 2015 while Ruiters was pregnant with Jeremiah. He said he met Peters when he came to fetch the older children in December.
He said Peters was sleeping in the bedroom and the children were playing outside.
He said the eldest was carrying Jeremiah, who was wearing a nappy and a vest.
A Factreton Primary School principal told him his 8-year-old daughter’s clothes were dirty, and her hair unbrushed, he said.
“And when I spoke to her, she told me she didn’t have a packed lunch,” he said.
Timm said he had been paying R1500 into Ruiter’s bank account monthly but stopped making payments in March 2017 after the school meeting.
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