The three-year-old girl from Robertson in the Boland was beaten to death with a blunt object, according to an autopsy done on Tuesday.
The child’s 23-year-old mother and her 24-year-old stepfather were arrested in Robertson on Tuesday.
Capt. Frederick van Wyk, police spokesperson, says a dossier for the judicial inquest that was opened on Monday has been turned into a murder dossier.
The case was also transferred to the Police Family Unit for Domestic Violence, Child Abuse and Sexual Offenses (GKS) in Worcester.
According to van Wyk, the man and woman will appear in the Robertson Magistrate’s Court on Friday on a charge of murder.
Robertson residents said Monday the girl’s eyes were pot blue when police arrived Monday. There was also blood against her left cheek up to her eyes. The blood presumably came from her left ear.
In a photo, there is also a large bloodstain against her left ear and cheek. There is also blood on her lips and just above her mouth. There are also large blue bruises above both her eyes.
Her mother apparently told police on Monday that her daughter fell from a bank behind their corrugated iron house on Saturday.
The mother said the child died Monday morning.
Residents, however, said the blood they saw on the child’s face was still fresh.
“If she had fallen on Saturday, the blood would certainly not have been there yet or looked so fresh.”
The girl lived with her mother, baby sister and stepfather in the zinc house.
Van Wyk said on Monday that the police were called after a three-year-old girl died at a house in Robertson.
He then said police found the child dead in a bed.
