When the bruised, battered and lifeless body of Chevonne Rusch was received at the Primrose clinic near Germiston, her biological father and maternal grandmother had been extremely concerned about her safety and were desperately looking for her.
It has now emerged that they were both separately thinking of taking two year old Chevonne into their care as they were worried that she could get harmed.
Chevonne’s grandmother, Ronel Smith, told Sunday Times Daily that she had been worried about her three grandchildren’s safety, as she felt their mother’s boyfriend was using them to ensure that their mother did not leave him.
Getting Chevonne from her mother and boyfriend was also a battle that her father had fought for about six weeks before the little girl’s death.
A tearful Bradleigh Rusch, Chevonne’s biological father, explained how for about a month and half he had been looking for his daughter, making numerous trips to her grandmother’s house in Klopperpark without success.
He said Chevonne had gone to her mother for what was supposed to be a weekend visit. Little did he know that the next time he would see her would be at a morgue.
On Wednesday, drama erupted outside the Germiston magistrate’s court, forcing Chevonne’s grieving mother to miss the bail hearing of the toddler’s alleged killer — her fiancé, Cornelius Stephanus van Niekerk.
The mother is not being identified in this article to protect the identities of her other minor children.
A crowd of about 30 angry demonstrators gathered outside the court, calling for Van Niekerk to be denied bail. They also took aim at the toddler's mother.
She had arrived in court to a hostile reception from demonstrators. Seemingly anticipating the crowd’s wrath, she had arrived wearing a bulletproof vest which she discarded later in the day .
Van Niekerk was arrested in connection with the death of Chevonne about two weeks ago. He allegedly dropped the child at the Primrose Clinic, in Germiston, east of Johannesburg, where she was certified dead on arrival.
Community members from Klopperpark, wearing T-shirts bearing Chevonne’s name, hurled insults at her mother, with another member physically attacking a woman who had accompanied her to court.
They called her “a bad mother” while some shouted “you’re guilty too” as she made her way out of the court building during a break. She ended up not attending the proceedings in the afternoon for her own safety.
The woman who had accompanied her, who identified herself as Kayla — a close family friend — said the “drama outside court was unnecessary” and the crowd was misinformed with their accusation of her being a possible accomplice.
“She’s now unable to attend the bail hearing and the crowd is making it difficult for her to mourn her child’s death,” Kayla said.
Kyla said the mother was struggling to come to terms with what has happened to her child and had been advised to wear a bulletproof vest as she could apparently have been a target.
Van Niekerk had lived close to Chevonne’s maternal grandmother. She said she had only managed to save one of her grandchildren from Van Niekerk.
“I managed to take the little boy about two weeks ago because the mom’s boyfriend targeted him and abused him ,” she said.
However, when she wanted to take Chevonne, it was too late.
“Van Niekerk made sure the children were always with them because he knew that with them there, my daughter wouldn’t leave him,” Smith said, adding that the children were used as bait to trap her daughter in an abusive year-long relationship.
“My heart is broken about my little girl. I just hope justice will be served,” she said.
Outside court, Rusch who was accompanied by his family, placed the blame squarely on his ex-girlfriend. The former couple had three children together, including Chevonne.
“This could have been avoided. I’ve been begging her and her whole family, not just me but my entire family too, to bring my daughter back and I struggled to get her back,” Rusch said.
He has taken custody of their two other children, a boy and a girl, who do from time to time visit their mother.
“She put my children in danger because she was the one dating that man. I feel that the police should do more, especially by ensuring that everyone involved is arrested,” Rusch said.
He said he was left confused about his daughter’s whereabouts until he got a phone call that she was dead.
“That just shook me, it shook me,” he said struggling to hold off tears.
Van Niekerk withdrew his bail application before the start of the hearing.
He had arrived in court wearing a baseball jacket, shorts and sneakers. He barely made eye contact with anyone in the courtroom and wrapped his face with a cloth buff and sobbed with his face cupped in his hands.
The matter has been postponed to July 19 for further investigation. The state indicated that there was still a postmortem report and a statement from a witness outstanding.
TimesLIVE
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