A mother who sold her six-year-old daughter to a ‘healer’ for just £800 has been jailed for life in South Africa.
Racquel ‘Kelly’ Smith, 35, was convicted of kidnapping and trafficking along with her boyfriend Jacquen Appollis and their friend Steveno van Rhyn.
Little Joshlin Smith, who has a fair complexion and turquoise eyes, disappeared last February after vanishing outside her home in Saldanha Bay, near Cape Town – and has not been seen since.
A court heard during the six-week trial how Smith was sought out by a ‘healer’ for her ‘light eyes and skin’, with the mother reportedly only receiving around £800 for her.
‘On the human trafficking charge, you are sentenced to life imprisonment. On the kidnapping charge, you are sentenced to 10 years imprisonment,’ Judge Nathan Erasmus told the trio.
He said he ‘drew no distinction’ from each other in their evil crime and the cold-hearted group showed no emotion as their sentences were read out.
The shocking trial has captivated South Africa for the last few months, with Joshlin still missing despite a major search operation.
Joshlin’s grandmother, who now cares for her daughter’s eldest child, pleaded with Smith ahead of the sentence to ‘bring my [grand]child back or tell me where she is’.
Amanda Smith-Daniels later told local broadcaster Newzroom Afrika that ‘I don’t feel that any sentence they get will bring my grandchild back.’
Her family has been left ‘broken’, she said, and she condemned her daughter for blaming others over the tragedy when she ‘was the person that did the deed’.
‘How do you sleep [and] live with yourself?’ she asked the callous mother in her victim statement on Wednesday after it was revealed by a social worker Joshlin had been living a life of neglect.
Smith and her accomplices refused to testify during the trial or call on any witnesses for their defence but more than 30 people were brought in to tell the court about Joshlin’s troubled life and disappearance.
Lourentia Lombaard, Smith’s friend and neighbour, told the community centre acting as a court so locals could attend that Smith had admitted to her she had done ‘something silly’ in a shocking confession.
In the days before Joshlin disappeared, the mother confessed to her that she had sold her child to a ‘sangoma’ – a traditional healer.
Ms Lombaard said she later saw Smith pack some of Joshlin’s clothing into a black bag, which she was carrying when she met a woman she believes was the sangoma.
Smith climbed into a white car with Joshlin and the sangoma and they drove away, according to Lombaard.
One of Joshlin’s teachers said Smith told them during one of the searches for Joshlin that she was already ‘on a ship, inside a container, and they were on the way to West Africa’.
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