Police chief furious over delay in finding murdered child’s body

Messages of sympathy continue to pour in for the Matlala family following the brutal murder of the four-year-old grandchild of Transvaal Judge-President Bernard Ngoepe. The ANC and its Youth League and the DA are among the political parties to express their anger and sympathy at the senseless killing of Makgabo Bernice Matlala. The little girl’s half-naked body was found under a bed in her home after three men burst in and gang-raped her nanny. It was at first feared that Bernice had been kidnapped, but police found her body under the bed a day after the murder.

Meanwhile, National Police Chief Jackie Selebi has expressed his anger at what he calls police incompetence in failing to find the child’s body sooner. Officers on the scene of the murder in Lenasia say, however, that they did a careful and systematic search all night long on Wednesday and only reached the part of the house where the body was found on Thursday. Police say a man was taken in for questioning but that he was not one of the attackers