Head split with ‘severe force’: Court hears horrific details of little Tazne van Wyk’s final moments

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Head split with 'severe force': Court hears horrific details of little Tazne van Wyk's final moments
Head split with 'severe force': Court hears horrific details of little Tazne van Wyk's final moments

Africa-Press – South-Africa. The full horror of eight-year-old Tazne van Wyk’s last moments, before she was beaten to death, were detailed in the Western Cape High Court on Thursday.

The little girl disappeared outside her house in Connaught Estate, Elsies River, on 7 February 2020.

After a search by volunteers and police for Tazne and the parolee she was last seen with, her body was found in a storm drain next to the N1 highway, near Worcester.

Her left hand had been hacked off.

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The man accused of murdering her faces 27 charges, including multiple rape counts, sexual assault, incest, and desecration of a corpse. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him.

All Tazne had done was walk a few metres from her parents’ home to a spaza shop across the road when she disappeared.

On Thursday, forensic pathologist Dr Ingrid Herbst testified in the trial of the man charged with her murder that the little girl suffered severe injuries to her head, skull, neck, and chest.

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She was struck so hard that “what was left of her brain” showed bleeding that spread from one side of the inside of her head, to the other.

“It is usually indicative of a quite severe force,” Herbst testified, adding that the chance of surviving an injury like that was low.

The hyoid bone in her neck was fractured in two places, indicating she was probably strangled.

Four of her ribs were fractured and her left hand was cut off.

She would have been in severe pain. The neck injury is thought to have been the death knell, with the force of hands pushing on it preventing breathing and blood flow.

She could not say whether Tazne was raped, because her body was severely decomposed when they found her.

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“There were maggots in her genital area. We could not tell if she was male or female.”

Specialist human biologist Dr Louise Friedling was brought in to testify further on the injuries to Tazne’s bones.

In extremely difficult testimony, she explained that the little girl’s pelvic bones had been forced apart from the bottom and inside of the pelvis, and the cartilage had split.

This is usually caused by a very young girl giving birth, sexual intercourse, or a bottle, because the only way to split the cartilage is by applying pressure to the bladder or vaginal area, she testified.

The trial continues.

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