Circumstances of Amy'Leigh's kidnapping raise these questions

The circumstances surrounding the kidnapping of Amy'Leigh de Jager (6), who was abducted in Vanderbijlpark on Monday morning, have raised questions. 

The grade R pupil was snatched from her mother's car while being dropped off at school.

Nineteen hours after she was abducted, she was given R4 “to buy water” and dropped off in the dark streets of the town.

TimesLIVE reported that local resident Shawn Delport, who had been helping the family and police with the search-and-rescue operation for Amy'Leigh, said she was dropped off at 2am on a street close to The Shakespeare Inn hotel in Vanderbijlpark.

Delport said that two people, believed to be her kidnappers, dropped her off and, 'gave her two R2 coins to buy water'. He said the little girl was then instructed to run across the road to where her mother would be waiting for her.

On Tuesday morning, Amy'Leigh's aunt, Louise Horn, told TimesLIVE the little girl had undergone tests at a local hospital and that she was unharmed.

Horn said the family was struggling to come to terms with the experience, but they were thankful that she was found alive.

She also said that the family had paid no ransom, despite the fact that the kidnappers demanded R2m for her safe return. Horn said she suspected that the massive media attention “must have rattled those guys”.

When the news broke that Amy'Leigh had been reunited with her family, questions about the circumstances of the kidnapping were raised by concerned citizens on social media.

Here are four questions:

Why was her younger brother, Jayden, pushed out of the way as she was thrust into the kidnappers' car?

TimesLIVE reported that the gang of four men who snatched Amy'Leigh from a drop-off point at Laerskool Kollegepark had pushed Jayden out of the way as she was thrust into their car.

Horn said the boy, 5, had been knocked to the ground.

Why didn't the kidnappers attempt to steal the car?

A private investigator who specialises in tracing missing children, Wendy Pascoe, described the abduction of Amy'Leigh de Jager as “beyond strange”. She told TimesLIVE that the incident wasn't something they usually see with kidnappings.

"This is not an everyday occurrence and I don’t want to say too much. What is odd is that the vehicle wasn’t taken, but the child was. Usually when children go missing in circumstances like this, it is because they are caught up in an effort to steal a car."

Was this a random kidnapping?

According to a MailOnline report, a source close to the family said the incident was "clearly not a random attack".

"You can only imagine what is going through the minds of her mother and father but this was clearly not a random attack and this had been planned."

How long had the kidnappers been planning the abduction?

TimesLIVE reported that a member of the School Governing Body (SGB) Andries Pienaar said they were shocked and disturbed by what happened.

"You can clearly see that this was a well-planned abduction because they snatched the child from the mother," he said.

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