05-05-2025
Woman accused of torching Joshlin Smith's home to remain in custody for another week
A woman has appeared in the Vredenburg Magistrate's Court for allegedly torching Joshlin Smith's home.
The house was set alight on Friday, hours after Joshlin's mother, Kelly, was found guilty of kidnapping and trafficking.
The accused has been remanded until her bail hearing next week.
The Middlepos woman accused of torching Joshlin Smith's home will remain in custody for another week.
Monique Kekana, 27, briefly appeared in the Vredenburg Magistraste's Court on Monday for allegedly setting the house alight.
The incident took place just hours after Joshlin's mother, Racquel "Kelly" Smith, and her two accused were convicted of kidnapping and trafficking.
Kekana has been remanded in custody until 12 May for a bail hearing.
On Friday night, the home where missing Joshlin once lived was burnt to the ground.
READ | Kelly Smith has been found guilty, but where is Joshlin?
This after Judge Nathan Erasmus found Smith, her partner, Jacquen "Boeta" Appollis, and their friend, Steveno van Rhyn, guilty of kidnapping and trafficking Joshlin.
Local councillor Veronique Pretorius said the community sentiment overall supported Kekana, with many locals expressing that they wanted the house to be destroyed.
Pretorius said this was most likely due to claims that drug users were using it, and this had made residents feel unsafe.
"Many of the people in the community are saying there's a reason why the house was burned down. It was planned," Pretorius claimed.
Joshlin went missing on 19 February 2024 and has still not been found despite ongoing searches by the police.
The multipurpose centre in Saldanha Bay, where the trial has been held for the last seven weeks, was packed to capacity for the judgment on Friday.
People clapped when they heard the final verdict, while Smith was tearful.
Delivering his judgment on Friday, Erasmus said Joshlin had been "exchanged" and "sold like a commodity".
In a judgment that took him more than two hours to deliver, Erasmus said the State's evidence stood uncontested and added that it then became a proven fact.
