“Satan made me kill her.”
This was the shocking confession the notorious wheelie bin killer, Gavin Manuel, made to police after he was arrested over the weekend.
After a week-long investigation and search for Manuel, 49, who is accused of brutally stabbing his teenage girlfriend Elene Lino to death and stuffing her in a wheelie bin, the Daily Voice can exclusively reveal that:
– He was hiding in Mitchells Plain with the help of his family;
– One of his daughters helped him escape;
– He made a confession to a top cop.
Last Sunday, residents living near Olga Court woke up to the shocking news that 19-year-old Elene’s body had been found in a wheelie bin.
At the time, family friend Candice Baartman, 26, told the Daily Voice that she had caught Manuel red-handed as he was trying to dump the body.
The couple had reportedly been arguing the entire night and Candice arrived home to find the house deurmekaar and blood on the floor.
She says she chased after Manuel who abandoned the bin and fled the area.
The murder sent shockwaves through the community and angry residents rioted in the streets, warning Manuel to hand himself over or be killed.
Angry aunties, along with gangsters and children, went on a manhunt as they pelted the homes of innocent people with stones, following false rumours that Manuel had been spotted.
Meanwhile, Manenberg Police Station commander, Brigadier Sanele Zama, had issued a plea to Manuel asking him to give himself up.
As cops scoured the area for the man known as “Nanganang”, Zama says Sergeant Natasha Landers discovered that the suspect had fled to Mitchells Plain.
During an interview with Manuel’s daughter, Abwanita Prins, 22, she revealed her father’s location.
She was taken to Manenberg Police Station on Wednesday where a team of cops asked her to show them the house in Montrose Park where he was hiding.
On arrival, cops were told that he had come to visit his eldest daughter, who lives on the property, but had been suffering from abdominal pains and was taken to Mitchells Plain District Hospital.
At the hospital, he used the alias “John Jack” but then oddly ran away from the facility without receiving treatment.
A day later, Landers received a tip-off that Prins had lied to cops and she was again brought to the station for questioning.
“It was revealed that on the day she took the officers to her father, she had already tipped him off that they were on their way and was lying to the police,” says Zama.
“It was also revealed that despite saying that the suspect was taken to Mitchells Plain by a friend, it was revealed that she (Prins) took her father to her eldest sister’s house several days earlier.
“It was also revealed that the sister had no idea why he was brought or that he was sought by the police until she read the [Daily] Voice.”
On Friday, Prins was taken into custody where cops discovered that she had deleted information from her phone in an attempt to conceal her communication with her father.
Tjanking at the police station, she told cops that her father had refused to tell her where he was and said he was planning to commit suicide.
Prins then led cops to a house in New Woodlands where they discovered the bloody T-shirt Manuel allegedly wore on the night of Elene’s murder.
But as cops were about to set off to their next location, they were informed that Metro Police had already nabbed the suspect.
Metro Police spokesperson, Superintendent Ruth Solomons, confirmed the arrest and said he was busted by the Gang and Drug Task Team who received a tip-off.
“When the suspect saw the officers, he started running but was apprehended after a short chase in Town Centre, assisted by SAPS,” she says.
Zama says Manuel will make his first appearance in the Athlone Magistrates’ Court today on a charge of murder.
“At this stage of the investigation, the daughter has not been charged and was released.
“I visited him in the cells and he did not deny that he killed her. In fact he said Satan told him to kill her.
“The investigation is ongoing but the question of how information about the investigation leaked will also have to be investigated.
“We are grateful that he was arrested and applaud all the officers who made this possible.
“We are hoping that peace and calm will be restored in Manenberg.”