Investigative podcast

PODCAST | Justice for Kopano: The little girl who vanished

An investigation into the unsolved case of a 10-year-old hit-and-run victim who was then abducted and died alone, far from her home

28 January 2021 - 06:00
By Paige Muller and Alex Patrick
Kopano's mother, stepfather and younger siblings try to find a new normal without her.
Image: Thapelo Morebudi Kopano's mother, stepfather and younger siblings try to find a new normal without her.

For five days, 10-year-old Kopano Molelekedi lay in a morgue in Soweto as a girl with no name.

Just 15km away, a family was frantically searching for their little girl who never made it back to her mother’s home in the Jerusalema township outside Roodepoort, near Johannesburg.

Finally, days later, a cousin working at Noordgesig Clinic made the connection when she saw the description circulated about the missing girl, and they tracked her to the morgue at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto.

This ended the search for Kopano - but it was only the start of a nightmare for her family that began on September 6 2018.

LISTEN | Episode 1: The little girl who vanished 

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This five-part investigative series is a collaboration between the Sunday Times and MultimediaLIVE following a two-year investigation that remains unresolved.