At least two domestic workers and a 17-year-old schoolboy in the Roodekrans area complained that a man matching suspected “Sunday Rapist” Johannes Steyn’s description had “exposed himself” to them.
This had come to the attention of the Roodekrans Neighbourhood Watch but, due to there being no sex offender registration number for him, nothing could be done.
“There are at least three known sex offenders in this area, and he was one we were aware of because of complaints fitting his description, one from a teenage boy. He was the only one who looked like Steyn. The other two have dark hair,” said Joey Preis, chairwoman of the Neighbourhood Watch.
“But we couldn’t do anything, because we didn’t have his registration number. Apparently he would expose himself to young women and boys in the area, but I can’t confirm the details,” she said.
Steyn has allegedly confessed that he raped and killed West Rand teenager Louise de Waal, before burning her body on a Magaliesburg farm.
Ace detective Warrant Officer Peet du Toit and his team are working throughout the weekend to link him to all of the cases in the Sunday Rapist dossier – 11 rapes and two murders – which Steyn has apparently also now confessed to.
Steyn will appear in court tomorrow to be formally charged, along with some other unreported rapes, which police believe he committed as recently as July this year.
Yesterday morning, the Sunday Tribune arrived at his home in Roodekrans just as a police officer was leaving Steyn’s house, where she had been interviewing his tenants, a tall, balding man and an ageing man, but they all refused to comment.
A gold-coloured Mercedes-Benz C270, a caravan and a trailer were parked in the driveway. Steyn drove a gold Mercedes-Benz ML when he arrived in Margate.
“He’s an above average earner, with a decent job. He is well-groomed and well-spoken, but as they say in Afrikaans, dis die makste honde wat die seerste byt(it’s the meekest dog that bites the worst),” said Du Toit.
The 35-year-old Steyn also has a wife, a six-year-old son and three dogs, who continued to stay away from the house yesterday as the tenants remained in the back section and refused to talk the media.
As the day unfolded, allegations began to emerge from neighbours about the strange behaviour of the tall balding tenant, who would spend hours sitting cross-legged on the pavement outside Steyn’s home – in the day and evenings – drinking beer and smoking.
“I often walk this road, and once he gave me a cigarette, but my friend, who heard it from other young boys, told me not go into the back with him to drink beer,” said Elias Mbulawa, a worker in the area.
Two domestic workers confirmed that the tenant would sit on the pavement for hours “just looking and smoking”.
One said he had once told her daughter he “loved her”.
Neighbour Chad Cato also said he found it strange that the man would be sitting there on a box outside the house “almost every evening when I came home”.
Du Toit said he would have his team look into the odd behaviour of the tenant, but unless the man had actually committed an offence – “he can’t be arrested for sitting on the pavement” – nothing could be done.
“But we will turn over every stone in this matter,” he said.
Steyn’s brother, a pastor, who convinced Steyn to hand himself over to police in Margate and orchestrated this with Du Toit over the phone at 4am on Wednesday, lives in the vicinity of Roodepoort and is said to be one of Steyn’s neighbours.
He could not, however, offer a name, and the police have kept his identity strictly confidential.
At the home of Louise de Waal’s mother in Florida, meanwhile, there was a pall of gloom yesterday as trauma counsellors tried to help relieve the pain and shock of this week’s horrific event.
Shireen de Waal was shattered by her daughter’s murder, said counsellor Peter Lerm.
As the Tribune arrived, the family of 14-year-old Lazanne Farmer, who broke her neck as she jumped out of a moving bakkie of a “blue-eyed,wigged” gunman who had kidnapped her and her 16-year-old friend last September, visited De Waal.
“They are also in pain. This is a terrible time for both families.
“You never get over something like this, you only learn to live with it,” said Lerm.
A memorial service has been planned for Louise at her school, Hoërskool Die Burger, in Florida at 2.30pm on Wednesday, family spokesman David Agsteribbe said.
The Roodekrans Neighbourhood Watch would meet on Tuesday evening, meanwhile, to discuss measures they can put in place to clamp down on sexual offenders in their area.
“We need their registration numbers, so we can warn parents and schools,” said Preis. - Sunday Tribune