Missing 17-year-old’s charred body dumped outside home

A family in Kekana Gardens, Hammanskraal, north of Pretoria, woke up to the grim discovery on Friday of their missing 17-year-old daughter’s body dumped a few metres from their home.

The naked, charred body of Koketso Ramahlo, who went missing on New Year’s Day, was discovered with shoes beside it.

Family friend Julia Mukhari said: “The mother is hurt, it’s painful, it’s traumatic, it’s unexplainable.”

Gauteng police confirmed the teenager’s body, which had burn marks, was discovered on Friday morning in a street next to her house. Police spokesperson Col Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said no arrests had been made yet and police were still investigating .

Mukhari said the teenager was last seen in the early hours of New Year’s Day after a crossover celebration with her friends.

“She left with her friends on December 31. She returned home to change and her aunt gave her the key when she said she was going to sleep. She didn’t sleep, she changed her clothes and went out. Her mother doesn’t know where she went and what happened,” she said.

The family began searching for her on Wednesday, visiting the police station and going to her boyfriend’s home. However, the boyfriend denied he had been with her.

Her friends were of no help either as they claimed to have last seen her going home. They circulated a social media post on Thursday.

Mukhari said Ramahlo’s grandfather woke up to discover a body when opening the gate. He woke his wife and sent their grandson to investigate whose body it was.

“When he went there he found that it was (Koketso),” Mukhari said.

The 17-year-old was expected to start grade 10 this year.

A community member and a family friend, Evelyn Modiba, said the discovery has traumatised the family and the community.

“As parents, we are hurt and we are weak. There is no parent that is coping right now. If you know the pain of losing a child, there is no way you won’t feel pain. It is painful how we found her. Her condition pierced our hearts as her parents and community.”

Modiba said the women were furious about the hurt inflicted on the teenager and had little faith in the perpetrator being jailed.

“For a child to die like that we are hurt. This also shows us that this was done by someone who knew her. After posting that she was missing, in the early hours they brought her body. It shows that the person who did this was someone we know. He saw that we were looking for her and dumped her here at home. He knew we were looking for her because he knows her home. She was dumped here naked, we had to cover her up,” Modiba said.

Kobbul Hlupo, a community leader, said they had suspicions who the attacker might be.

“We suspect someone but if the community interferes too much, we might ruin the case. For now we are going to give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to investigate. We told the station commander that we are giving them 24 hours to deal with this and give us something concrete. If they fail then we will have a problem.

“This scares us because at this stage we have a lot of teenagers, especially girl children — it’s a shock,” he said.