Little Celine Cowley's murderer found

By Tarryn Le Chat

According to the Weekend Argus, the man who has pleaded guilty to raping and murdering little Celine Cowley, 4, helped search for her earlier in the week.

And a neighbour said James Barnes, 35, who had known Celine since she was born, had told other searchers for the missing four-year-old that if he found the person who had hurt her, he would kill him.

Rachel Bantam, a friend of the Cowley family, who was at the Bellville Magistrate's court yesterday, said: "He stood next to me and said if he found the person who did this to Celine, he would kill that person. Little did we know that he was the killer himself".

Bantam said that if the neighbours had known this earlier, he would have been dead. "If we'd known it was him then, he would have been dead already. Instead he's in police custody".

Yesterday angry neighbours of the Cowley family from Ravensmead gathered outside the court and called for the re-instatement of the death penalty. They also called for Barnes to be castrated.

Inside the court Barnes pleaded guilty to raping, sexually assaulting and murdering little Celine.

Celine's body was found buried under leaves in the backyard of a house, two houses away from her home on Tuesday.