By Alex Eliseev
It was a brief glimmer of hope in one of the country's most enduring crime mysteries - but the latest twist in the Gert van Rooyen saga has led to another dead end.
The Star has established that the bones found this week at a home near Van Rooyen's former Pretoria residence are not human.
Two senior police sources close to the investigation have confirmed that Tuesday's discovery is likely to be the remains of an old refuse pit.
Paedophile Van Rooyen was accused of abducting and killing six girls 20 years ago, but committed suicide and took the secret of their whereabouts to his grave.
Along with the bones, police found several antique glass bottles, a piece of an old geyser and building material.
One of the labels on a glass bottle provided police with a clue as to how old the pit may have been - the date read "1950".
It's understood that forensic experts have studied the bones and concluded, based on their structure, that they did not belong to a human being.
Another factor was that the bones had been cut in a way one would slice up a "braai chop", one of the sources revealed.
"They are definitely not human."
Based on the studies, the bones will not be tested further and the investigating officer will be notified of the developments once the report is complete.
The latest twist comes just months after a separate set of bones were unearthed from their sandy graves about 500m from a holiday resort believed to have been visited by Van Rooyen and his lover, Joey Haarhoff.
In January 1990, police finally cornered Van Rooyen and Haarhoff and were about to arrest them when Van Rooyen shot Haarhoff and himself.
With those bullets, the location of the girls' bodies became one of South Africa's longest-kept secrets.
- Van Rooyen and Haarhoff allegedly kidnapped Joan Horn, 13, Odette Boucher, 11, Anne-Marie Wapenaar, 12, Yolande Wessels, 12, Fiona Harvey, 12, and Tracy-Lee Scott-Crossley,14.