Eight months after a murder docket was sent to the director of public prosecutions for a decision, it disappeared without a trace, only to reappear miraculously on the day TimesLIVE Premium requested answers.
This after both the police and the National Prosecuting Authority told Andre van Wyk — the private investigator working for the late Marcelle Oosthuizen’s family — that the docket was nowhere to be found.
In 2023, Johannesburg senior accountant Oosthuizen, 58, died after being poisoned while at work. She had worked for Murray & Roberts for 25 years at the time of her death.
The autopsy later found she had died from organophosphate poisoning. Organophosphates are a class of chemical compounds used in pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, plastics, solvents and nerve agents.
A month earlier Oosthuizen had survived a similar incident, also while at work, in which she displayed the same symptoms, but had recovered after being treated at hospital.
“My mother had no enemies that I know of and the police investigator is not communicating with us, so we do not know what happened and why,” Sadie Mooi, 39, told TimesLIVE Premium in December.
The investigation continued to stall and stutter up to the point where police, when TimesLIVE Premium inquired into the matter in December, said the investigation had been completed and the docket sent to the public prosecutor for a decision.
What they did not say was that this had already happened on July 19 last year.
This past week, Van Wyk showed TimesLIVE Premium a new email from a senior prosecutor advising him that “both Germiston judiciary and the inquest clerk have no record of receiving the docket.”
When asked, NPA spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwane referred TimesLIVE Premium back to the police saying “they are the custodians of the dockets.”
Van Wyk drove to the Bedfordview police station and took a picture of the register that has to be signed by the SAPS intake officer when an investigator hands over a docket.
From the sign-in details it was clear the docket had already been handed over by the investigating officer in July 2024.
The picture of the signing page of the register was sent to police spokesperson Col Mavela Masondo and Mjonondwane at 10.43am last week Wednesday.
Both responded with similar messages later the same day.
At 2.21pm on Wednesday, Masondo wrote: “The investigating officer was given the docket back by the court today. The NPA gave the investigating officer further instructions as part of the investigation. Once those instructions are fulfilled, the docket will be taken back to court for a decision.”
Thirteen minutes later, Mjonondwane replied: “The case docket was received and sent back to SAPS with instructions for further investigations.
“Once SAPS has completed the investigation, the docket will be brought back to the NPA for a decision.”
Mooi, daughter of the deceased, is still clinging to the slim hope of justice for her mother.
“I try not to lose hope even though there is one delay after the other and this never seems to stop. We have tried giving the police the space and whatever assistance they needed, but the investigation just doesn't move forward,” Mooi said on Thursday.
“I miss my mom and I want justice for her with all my heart. There are these random moments when everything just gets too much and the tears come. We as a family want closure on the life of a warm and caring person who was cruelly taken from us,” Mooi said.
But she hasn't lost that last glimmer of hope yet.
“After all this time it is beginning to feel hard to believe in justice, but we are holding on. We believe that somehow this investigation will eventually get to the truth of what happened to my mother.
For now, she casts her eyes upwards.
“All I can do now is pray. It is the only place I can put my anxiety and frustrations. I pray for everybody involved in the case, even for the investigating officer.”
Van Wyk is equally frustrated.
“It has been a tough road. We have a very strong suspect, but the investigator just kept saying he can't interview anybody else until he receives his instructions from the prosecutor,” Van Wyk said.
“I am hoping these new instructions will include that this suspect be interviewed.”
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