Joshlin Smith trial — mother ‘failed to reveal boyfriend’s location, leaving police scrambling’

Jose Emke, left, the father of missing Joshlin Smith, and grandmother Rita Yon were among the crowd that attended the trial.

By Vincent Cruywagen

3 Mar 2025

In the hours after Saldanha Bay police received a missing persons report for six-year-old Joshlin Smith, they began visiting relatives’ homes to find the girl. Her mother was there to assist, but she now faces charges of human trafficking her own daughter.

Joshlin Smith’s mother, Racquel Smith, better known as Kelly, told police that on 19 February 2024, she dropped off her six-year-old daughter, Joshlin Smith, at her boyfriend’s home in Saldanha Bay at around 8am and went to work. When she returned at 5pm, Joshlin was gone.

Smith filed a missing persons report that afternoon and police began their search. The last stop was the boyfriend’s house, but at that time, police knew him only as “Boeta”. The Western Cape High Court heard that Smith neither told them his name was Jacquen Appollis nor took them to his home.

Constable Yanga Gongotha told the Western Cape High Court on Monday, 3 March 2025 that he and a colleague began a frenzied hunt in Tsitsiratsiti, an informal settlement in Middelpos, Saldanha Bay, where the Smith family lived, knocking on the doors of family members.

emke yon Jose Emke, left, the father of missing Joshlin Smith, and grandmother Rita Yon were among the crowd that attended the trial. (Photo: Vincent Cruywagen)

Gongotha and his colleague learnt only later, through a person called Mielo, that Boeta was, in fact, Appollis and where they could find him.

According to Gongatha, when they finally found Appollis’ shack, Smith’s attitude left the police speechless.

“She transformed from a mother who had recently lost her child to someone who was overjoyed to see her partner. The first question she asked Appollis was whether he had refilled the gas cylinder, not about her child,” he told the court on Monday.

Appollis supposedly told the police he had last seen Joshlin paying outside his shack.

When police arrived at Appollis’s shack, it was around 10pm and load shedding was about to begin.

“When load shedding began, I was busy filling out the missing report form and gathering information from Kelly. I completed the form on the police vehicle’s bonnet while Mielo held the torch and [shined] the light on the form,” he told the court.

The search continued that night — and then for weeks and months. Despite a widespread hunt, Joshlin has not been found.

Trial under way

Constable Gongotha was the first witness called by the State to give an overview of what police did from the minute they heard of Joshlin’s disappearance.

The trial began on Monday, 3 March 2025, in the Western Cape High Court, sitting in the Saldanha Bay Multipurpose Centre before Judge Nathan Erasmus.

State prosecutor Zelda Swanepoel walked him through what he and his colleagues did when they learnt of Joshlin’s disappearance.

His testimony came after Smith and her two co-accused, her boyfriend Appollis and their friend Steveno van Rhyn, pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and human trafficking charges.

Prior to their plea, Judge Erasmus informed the accused that if they were convicted of human trafficking, they would face a minimum term of life.

Smith and her co-accused face charges of kidnapping and human trafficking stemming from the disappearance of Joshlin, a Grade 1 learner at Diazville Primary.

In October 2024, prosecutor Aradhana Heeramun alleged that Joshlin was “sold, delivered or exchanged” and that Smith allegedly orchestrated the little girl’s sale and lied about her disappearance.

The allegations against Smith, Appollis and Van Rhyn appear to have come to light after another accused, Lorentia Lombaard, turned State witness. Charges were dropped against Lombaard. She is the State’s key witness against Smith, Appollis and Van Rhyn. Lombaard is a friend of Smith and Appollis.

Grandmother emotional

Rita Yon, Joshlin’s grandmother, was overcome with emotion when she spoke to the media at the end of the first day of the trial.

“I was really shocked. I didn’t expect that Kelly didn’t have any feelings for her missing child. I’m so sad because I’m also a mother and if your child went missing any mother would go crazy,” she said.

Read more: Joshlin Smith’s mother and co-accused plead not guilty in high-profile kidnapping and trafficking trial

Western Cape NPA spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said the State had finally reached the point where it called its first witness who responded to the disappearance of Joshlin.

“He testified what happened the day of Joshlin’s disappearance up to the next day, but one can see that some of the things came out, that Kelly didn’t look very worried or didn’t look like someone who lost a child.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘I want to know what happened to her,’ says Joshlin Smith’s grandmother before trial

“She was more concerned about her boyfriend Appollis, when they found the boyfriend in some other shack where they were smoking. The first thing she asked her boyfriend was whether he had filled the gas canister. The last thing Gongotha said, [that] all the time when he spoke to Kelly about the child, she never cried,” Ntabazalila said.

The trial will continue on Tuesday, with the defence cross-examining Gongotha, followed by the three accused explaining why they were pleading not guilty to the charges. DM

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Trial under way

Grandmother emotional