If you live in South Africa you’ll know about this man: Gert van Rooyen.
Cornelius Gerhardus van Rooyebn was an alleded paedophile and serial killer, who abducted and allegedly kidnapped and murdered 6 young girls. He worked together with his partner Joey Haarhof and when they were faced with arrest they committed suicide.
Gert van Rooyen is one of the most notorious criminals we have in South Africa, and his crimes still haunt many families in our country. His first crimes were theft, after which he was sent to a reform school in 1954. He was imprisoned again in 1960 for stealing motor spares and clothing.
In 1979 he kidnapped two young girls, forced them to strip naked and perform sexual acts. He released them the next day. He was then arrested and sentenced to four year imprisonment for his crimes. He was released however after only serving 3 years.
In 1988 after divorcing his wife, Gert started dating Joey Haarhof. It was thought that Gert used Joeye to lure young girls to him, contacting Children’s homes and requesting to bring young girls home for the holidays and weekends.
His crimes were spread from August 1988 to January 1990.
Some of his victims include: Tracy-Lee Scott-Crossley
Fiona Harvey
Joan Horn
Janet Delport
Rosa Piel
Odette Boucher
Anne-Mari Wapenaar
Yolanda Wessels
In 1990, 16 year old Joan Booysen was abducted by Haarhof. She was taken to Van Rooyens home, drugged, handcuffed and sexually assaulted before being locked up in a cupboard. She managed to escape however, and alerted the police, who placed the home under surveillance. Van Rooyend, after realising this was the end, shot Haarhof and then himself.
All the above disappearances, except Rosa Piel and Tracy-Lee Scott-Crossley, were linked to Van Rooyen and Haarhof by witness statements and forensic evidence. Non of the victims were ever found, despite extensive police searches of all his known premises. Psychics have even tried to locate the correct areas where the bodies might be, but nothing was ever found.
In 1996 his house was donated to the police by the local bank, for the police to do more investigations on the house, but nothing was ever found. In March 2007 there was renewed interest in the case as some bones were found at a beach in Kwazulu-Natal near a holiday resort that van Rooyen and Haarhof had visited, but DNA testing revealed that none of these bones belonged to any of the victims.
In November of the same year (2007) more bones were found on a property next to van Rooyens house in Pretoria. Local authorities were alerted and the bones are still being investigated to determine whether they are indeed human, and that of the missing girls.
