A 12-year-old girl has given chilling details of how she managed to escape from the clutches of a would-be rapist who tried to drag her into the Bush of Evil in Eerste River.
The traumatised meisie revealed how the suspect put his hands inside her panty because he wanted to make sure she was not a boy.
And when she and her brave little friend, 12, tried to fight him off, he sat on her and tried to choke her to death.
The suspect is still at large but yesterday, the Elsies River Community Policing Forum said they may have discovered his lair in the notorious bush along Van Riebeek Road.
Cops found several empty shacks close to the dam where the girl was attacked.
They also discovered pornographic videos hidden in one shack.
The bush is known as The Wines and was recently cleared for a new housing development. The land is privately owned.
Meanwhile, police have taken in a man for questioning.
But he was released after the 12-year old boy, who pelted the attacker with stones to save his friend, could not positively identify him.
Wendell Slabbert, the Public Relations officer for the Blue Downs and Kleinvlei Policing Cluster, says the man was released.
“The community and neighbourhood watch searched the bush and houses in the area,” he says.
“We found a man fitting the description of the suspect but the witness said it was not him.
“We also found pornographic videos in the bush.”
The children were attacked on Valentine’s Day last week, while they were swimming at a dam.
The meisie, who was left with a swollen nose and fractured cheekbone, was discharged from Karl Bremer Hospital on Thursday.
Speaking from their Eerste River home on Sunday, the girl and her family appealed for cops to find the suspect before he targets more victims.
Her swollen face bandaged, the girl explained how the man chased after her and her friends before grabbing and choking her.
“We were in the dam while my other friend stood on the outside,” she says.
“We just saw our friend running and thought what is going on and then we realised there was someone at the dam.
“The man was telling our friend to get into the water but he refused and was running.
“We all got out of the water and I also started running but I became weak and stood still for a few minutes.
“This was when he got hold of me, he made me trip and fall.
“He grabbed me and started choking me but my friend started throwing stones at him.
“I got up and was getting away but he kept kicking me on my side and in my face.
Trembling, she adds: “At one stage he sat on top of me and was choking me and I lost consciousness.
“I can’t even remember how I got home but I know it was my friend who saved me.”
The children have described their attacker as a thin black man, who wore glasses with yellow rims, and he was wearing an orange T-shirt.”
The girl said the man talked Afrikaans “with a Xhosa accent” and placed his hands on her privates.
“He put his hands in my pants to check if I was a girl. I am very scared of him and I want the police to catch him and keep him in jail.”
The child’s ouma says she is unable to attend school for the rest of the term while she heals.
She urged authorities to deploy more cops to catch the suspect.
“We do not know if this is the first time he has done this,” says the ouma.
“The man was seen in the bush on Sunday which makes me think that he is preying on children there, especially little girls.
“The police must catch him because he belongs in jail.
“She’s her mother’s only child, I am just grateful that he didn’t get the chance to rape her.”