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Joshlin kidnap trial — the State's case against Kelly Smith, Jacquen Appollis and Steveno van Rhyn

Kelly Smith's house in Middelpos (Photo: Gallo Images/Brenton Geach)

28 Apr 2025

The State wants Judge Nathan Erasmus to convict Racquel Smith, also known as Kelly, the mother of missing Joshlin, Jacquen Appollis and Steveno van Rhyn, on counts of kidnapping and human trafficking originating from Joshlin’s disappearance-this is their argument, but do they have enough evidence?

The State will argue that the court cannot merely look at the evidence of State witness Laurentia Lombaard in isolation. Despite criticism of her testimony, there is a ‘golden thread’ of truth running through it, as well as additional evidence that corroborates her story. This is the gist of the prosecution’s heads of argument, which will be heard in the Western Cape High Court sitting in Saldanha Bay on Tuesday, 29 April 2025.

The State wants Judge Nathan Erasmus to convict the three accused: Racquel Smith, also known as Kelly, the mother of missing Joshlin, Jacquen Appollis and Steveno van Rhyn, on counts of kidnapping and human trafficking originating from Joshlin’s disappearance.

The accused have chosen to remain silent, meaning the State’s case will proceed unchallenged, and their attorney will only be allowed to cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses.

Jacquen (Boeta) Appollis, Steveno van Rhyn and Kelly Smith during day 25 of the Joshlin Smith trial at White City Multipurpose Centre on April 08, 2025 in Saldanha Bay, South Africa. The suspects are facing charges of kidnapping and trafficking in the case of the Grade 1 Diazville Primary School learner who was last seen on February 19th wearing a light blue T-shirt and light blue denim shorts. (Photo by Gallo Images/Brenton Geach)

Read more: Accused in Joshlin Smith trial decline to take stand or call witnesses

The court proceedings will now see the prosecution presenting final arguments, followed by questions by the defence for the accused.

The central figure in this case is Smith, Joshlin’s mother, who is accused of masterminding the child’s disappearance.

The accused face life imprisonment if convicted on the count of human trafficking.

Background

Smith, her boyfriend Appollis, also known as Boeta, and Van Rhyn face charges stemming from Joshlin’s disappearance on 19 February 2024 from the Middelpos informal settlement in Saldanha Bay.

The three, who have pleaded not guilty, have denied the allegations against them. The State alleges that the accused “sold, delivered or exchanged” Joshlin, a Grade 1 pupil at Diazville Primary, for money.

Smith’s warning statement, read into the record on 22 April, provided a timeline of the day Joshlin went missing. She didn’t describe Joshlin’s possible whereabouts and the statement is inconsistent with the evidence before the court.

The only piece of solid evidence the State has against the three is that of State witness Luarentia Lombaard, who was initially accused number four, who detailed how Joshlin’s mother allegedly plotted to sell the six-year-old to a sangoma for R20,000.

After 4days and 3 hours the cross examination by state witness Laurentia Lombaard ended in the Western Cape High Court sitting in Saldanha Bay, on Wednesday, 26 March 2025. (Photo: Vincent Cruywagen)

Read more: Shocking testimony unveils Kelly Smith’s alleged plot to sell six-year-old daughter Joshlin to a sangoma

Appollis and Van Rhyn appeared to have implicated themselves when they said Joshlin was taken to a supposed sangoma on the day she went missing. Judge Erasmus ruled that the accused’s confessions in the trial were admissible and could be used as evidence against them.

Let’s consider the significance of Lombaard’s testimony to try to connect the dots and create a picture of the origins of the alleged plot – tracing the thread of alleged conspiracy among the key individuals involved in Joshlin’s suspected kidnapping and trafficking.

Premonition of the plot

kelly smith joshlin trial Racquel ‘Kelly’ Smith, mother of missing girl Joshlin Smith, leads the court to her home, from where Joshlin Smith disappeared. (Photo: Vincent Cruywagen)

Although Joshlin vanished on 19 February 2024, her mother, Kelly, allegedly planned the plot months before, in August 2023. This is where prosecutor Zelda Swanepoel would argue the plan originated.

This was revealed during the trial in the Western Cape High Court sitting in Saldanha Bay on 12 March 2025, when Nico Steven Coetzee, a general worker and evangelist, stepped into the witness box.

According to Coetzee’s testimony, on a cool morning in August 2023, at about 7.20am, he encountered Smith jogging in the Middelpos informal settlement.

Coetzee told the court that Smith had claimed that in January or February 2024 “you will see with your own eyes what will happen in Middelpos and Diazville. It will look like a movie scene, of cars and people that will search but they will find nothing because I will take the child very far.”

Read more: Joshlin Smith’s mother ‘talked of plans for daughter to be taken months before disappearance’

Coetzee said he realised the significance of Smith’s words when Joshlin went missing the following February. Coetzee recalled seeing Smith at a church service for Joshlin on 3 March 2024, where he pieced together the chilling connection.

Role players allegedly acted in common purpose

Judge Nathan Erasmus during day 25 of the Joshlin Smith trial at White City Multipurpose Centre on April 08, 2025 in Saldanha Bay, South Africa. The suspects are facing charges of kidnapping and trafficking in the case of the Grade 1 Diazville Primary School learner who was last seen on February 19th wearing a light blue T-shirt and light blue denim shorts. (Photo: Gallo Images/Brenton Geach)

Judge Erasmus has stated repeatedly since the trial began on 3 March 2025 that at the conclusion of the trial all evidence, statements and testimonies from various individuals should be analysed in their totality to indicate the accused’s role in the alleged crime.

The State contends that Appollis, Smith and Van Rhyn had a common purpose and acted together to attain that purpose, which was to commit the offence embodied in the preferred charges.

Testimony from Lombaard suggests that she overheard Smith and Appollis discussing Joshlin’s sale to a sangoma. Lombaard, who claims to have been part of the group but later distanced herself from the alleged plot, also testified that Smith planned to report her child as missing.

Charges were dropped against Lombaard after she opted to spill the beans on her co-accused and turn State witness.

Lombaard claimed, among other things, that she overheard Kelly and Boeta discussing Joshlin’s sale to a sangoma, that everyone in the shack, including Kelly, Boeta, Van Rhyn and herself, consented to the plot, and that Kelly would report her child missing.

Lombaard said that she was not part of the plot on 19 February 2024 when Kelly allegedly took Joshlin to a sangoma in a white Polo, but she followed Kelly and watched how Joshlin got into the back seat of the car with her mother. The child was never seen again.

The State will further argue that common purpose existed on Sunday, 18 February 2024, before the commission of the offence, and persisted throughout its entirety, particularly on 19 February when Joshlin disappeared.

Also part of the State’s arguments will be that the accused were an integral part of the events leading up to Joshlin’s disappearance and by allegedly acting in concert, either planned the illegal criminal outcome or foresaw its possibility with callous disregard.

Part of State witness evidence might be corroborated

Sergeant Dawid Fortuin testifies at the Joshlin Smith abduction trial in the Western Cape High Court sitting in Saldanha on Tuesday, 8 May 2025. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)

Throughout the trial, counsel for the three accused argued that Lombaard’s confession, warning statement and actual statement were riddled with inconsistencies.

Counsel for the accused further claimed that Lombaard’s statements are unreliable and that she is not a credible witness, arguing that there is no evidence against Appollis, Van Rhyn or Smith.

However, when Judge Erasmus dismissed the Section 174 motion to withdraw charges against Smith and Van Rhyn, he cited one piece of evidence that served as a golden thread and corroborates some of the versions included in Lombaard’s confession.

“In one piece of the evidence Lombaard speaks of a discussion she overheard on Sunday, 18 February 2024. She tells the court about a conversation she had heard between Smith and Appollis. That lays the basis for what happened on 19 February 2024. Appollis in his statement relates to a similar discussion on that Sunday.

“In the event I find that that portion of Appollis’s statement corroborates Lombaard’s in that regard, then it can be evidence. I’m not saying it is. In my final evaluation I might find because of the corroboration on one aspect or another, that is a golden thread, where I can rely on that evidence,” the judge said on Wednesday.

On the other hand, Appollis’s version, in his statement, of what happened on 19 February 2024 reads: “It was around 10am when my girlfriend, Racquel Smith, told me that she is tired of Natasha and Joshlin’s father Jose, who was trying to take the child away from her. She told me that she had already talked to Makalima and I must take Joshlin to Makalima (Phumza Sigaqa) and that she is going to help Kelly with R20,000.”

This exchange on 18 February 2024 serves as a “golden thread” connecting the statements made by Lombaard and Appollis, further tying the two together.

Other evidence before the court that will add weight to the State’s case is Coetzee’s testimony about what he was allegedly told by Smith in August 2023, followed by Lombaard’s corroborating testimony confirming a discussion about what should have happened to Joshlin on 19 February 2024, and circumstantial evidence for what would have happened at about lunchtime on that day.

Then there is the evidence of Kelly Zeegers, for whom Smith worked as a domestic worker. Zeegers testified that Smith was supposed to clean her house on the day Joshlin disappeared. Smith also works at the house of Kelly’s mother, Carlien.

In her plea explanation Smith said that “after I had attended Kelly’s house, I then returned to Carlien’s house where I remained for the rest of the afternoon”.

But Kelly told the court that Smith had not worked at her house at all on that day. CCTV footage also indicated that Smith had not been at Zeegers’s home.

Another crucial part of evidence comes from Smith’s sister, Mickeyla Daniels, a police constable. Daniels testified on 17 March 2025, claiming that Smith had told her: “Sister, my child is here in the informal settlement. Somebody wants to sell my child, but Saldanha is currently a hot spot.”

Kelly Smith's house in Middelpos (Photo: Gallo Images/Brenton Geach)

State calling for a conviction

Prosecutor Swanepeol underlined during the discharge of the three accused’s Section 174 application that the court cannot look at Lombaard’s evidence in isolation.

Swanepoel submitted: “Yes, I concede there is criticism against what Lombaard testified, and the court will carefully evaluate that. But it is the State submission that there is that golden thread of truth running through her testimony. Even if there are unreliable aspects in it, the golden thread is still there.”

The State will also argue that the court must consider all of the evidence holistically to determine whether there is evidence that a reasonable court acting with caution could convict them, and that the submission is sufficient evidence to conclude that a court could do so. DM

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