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Emotional night as Cape community remembers ‘bubbly’ Michaela Williams

She was raped and murdered earlier this month. Relatives, friends and community members gathered at the girl’s family home for a memorial service on Thursday night.

A community member holds a poster outside of court on 14 January 2020, calling for the return of the death penalty after Michaela Williams, 12, was raped and murdered by a repeat offender. Picture: Lauren Isaacs/EWN.
A community member holds a poster outside of court on 14 January 2020, calling for the return of the death penalty after Michaela Williams, 12, was raped and murdered by a repeat offender. Picture: Lauren Isaacs/EWN.
| 178 days ago

CAPE TOWN - Twelve-year-old Michaela Williams has been described as a loving and bubbly child.

She was raped and murdered earlier this month. Relatives, friends and community members gathered at the girl’s family home for a memorial service on Thursday night.

Her body was found in Schaapkraal, in Philippi, last week and a 48-year-old man - previously convicted of child rape and attempted murder - was arrested.

Afieya Daniels, who lives about five meters from Williams’ family home, said the slain 12-year-old was like a child to her.

Hours before Williams disappeared last Tuesday, Daniels had sent her to the shop to buy a litre of milk. The girl returned with the milk and change.

It would be the last time Daniels saw her alive.

“She was bubbly and had a great personality. She hugged everyone. She was a loving child.”

The man accused of Williams’s rape and murder had spent 13 years behind bars for the rape and attempted murder of an eight-year-old girl in Mitchells Plain in 2005. He had stabbed her in the heart with a pair of scissors and left her to die in bushes along Swartklip Road.

She was found alive the next day, covered in blood. Her distraught mother said she's moved her daughter, who is now 23, to a safe space after her killer threatened to find her after his release to “finish what he had started”.

“The time when we went to court, he testified with a smile that he killed my child. The day when she testified against him, he said it’s not her because he killed her. I ask myself, who will be his next victim? I hope this time, he will be put away for life.”

The woman said her family knew her daughter’s attacker well. He was also no stranger to Williams and her family.

He was handed a 20-year sentence for the rape and attempted murder of the eight-year-old girl and was later released on parole.

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