Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to another special assignment, thank you for joining us. This week we follow the trail of East London's so-called 'penguin killers.' In May this year, several people broke into the East London Aquarium and killed a number of penguins, pelicans, and gannets. The shocked community was left wondering who had committed this terrible act and why. There were many theories, no easy answers. Months later, there seemed to be little progress in the case until Sara Blecher and cameraman Dennis [Goddard] started digging.

Speaker 2:

East London, a stagnant port on our east coast where unemployment looms like an endless Sunday. It seems idyllic, but seething beneath the surface there's a growing uneasiness. Many have been left behind by the tides of change, the old certainties are gone, and the young seek solace from their jagged lives in strange and sometimes sordid rituals.

Speaker 3:

If there is a kingdom of His dear Son, the Son of God, there must be a kingdom of darkness which is the kingdom of the authority of Satan. The kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of the demonic realm has the rule that it is disobedient to the authority of God. That's the rule.

That's a very good question, "What do they look like?" They look like ordinary people. And yes, they are real and they're ordinary people, ordinary housewives, ordinary attorneys, doctors, mechanics, whatever profession.

Speaker 4:

Staff at the East London Aquarium are baffled by the barbaric slaughter of penguins, pelicans, and gannets by unknown culprits last night. We'd like to warn viewers that some of the following visuals may be disturbing.

Nine penguins, two gannets, and two pelicans were killed, leaving hardened aquarium staff in tears. The birds are protected and endangered animals valued at an estimated R50,000. Police are investigating.

Willie:

I got a phone call from one of my staff members, that I better get down to the aquarium, the police was here already. I felt it was very personal, somebody wanted to hurt me badly. That is what I felt.

Yeah, this is the male Bobo, his girlfriend's name was Bessie, and they were huge birds, they were really lovely, very tame and very nice birds, yeah. Okay, and this was Bobo after the incident. It was obviously not very nice for us to find him like this lying in his cage, but this was how we found Bobo on the Monday morning.

Speaker 6:

Horrified, absolutely horrified. I mean in the amount of years that I've been associated with the SPCA, I've come across so many cases of outright cruelty, that truthfully words fail me sometimes. I just don't believe that people can do things like that. But I've never come across a case of such outright malicious cruelty in my life on defenceless birds, and they were defenceless.

Willie:

Bobo had a very sharp object, which could also have been a heavy metal rod, pushed through the sack the bottom of his mouth a couple of times, puncturing the sack.

Speaker 6:

The damage, as I say, was horrific. The two pelicans in particular, that was really terrible because as the fur was taken off the neck you could see that the fingermarks were very distinct, you could see the individual fingermarks where the neck had obviously been held very tight in one hand and a crushing blow had been delivered probably with the other.

Speaker 2:

Several months after the penguin killing, there still seemed to be no progress in the police's case, so Special Assignment decided to visit East London. We'd heard all sorts of rumours of satanists and perlemoen smugglers, and wanted to see what we could find. Our first stop was City Hall.

Speaker 7:

I mean that there wasn't a need to attack such creatures. That's why we were saying it is a bad thing and we condemn it. Because if it was taken away, then we'd say that people were hungry, but the birds were left there.

Speaker 2:

Our next stop was Willie, the aquarium curator. We found him rescuing a penguin on the beach.

Willie:

My first thought was it could potentially be my involvement with perlemoen court cases or rock lobster court cases where I have to be a witness for the state. The other thought was that it could just simply be vandalism, really naughty kids that didn't know what to do with themselves. We had a couple of suggestions from members of the public that it could potentially be satanism.

We put out the word that there's a R12,000 reward. We got a number of phone calls. Some of them were obvious fortune hunters that thought that they were gonna just tell us a little story and get some reward out of it. But then, all of a sudden, things started pointing in a different direction. We got a number of phone calls, I would say in the region of four or five, relating to an incident at the local hotel, and I believe that is the place to start looking. And I believe that if we dig deep enough we're going to find truth there.

Speaker 2:

We followed Willie's hunch. It led us to the West Bank, a seedy part of a town, and a pool club called the Galley Ocean. Here, with the help of a local private investigator Christian Botha, we managed to track down the bartender. She described how some local kids, Meraai and Stanley, were at the bar on the night of the killing. She said they'd been drinking and playing pool.

Tanya:

They hadn't even finished a game of pool when the Nel brothers pulled up there to come and fetch them. This is where I hung the jacket, over here. The jacket hung here. That's where I put the helmets over there. When they left they didn't take it, the jackets hung there and the helmets stayed here and they all left in the escort that pulled up outside there, [inaudible].

They came back there, just before I was about to close, could've been about 12, round there. I was by myself in the bar when they arrived. And when they came in they had blood on them, all over them. Meraai's jacket over here had blood on it and down the side of it, and Stanley had a Powerhouse T-shirt on, that was covered in blood, it was drenched in blood.

I noticed this and I said to them, "Look, who did you's [foreign language]" So they said, "No well, no one." So I said, "Well, then who [foreign language] you's?" They said, "No, well who's gonna [foreign language] us?" So I said, "Well, why are you's covered in blood," you know? So Meraai said to me, "No, we were killing birds." So I said to her, "What?" So Shane nudged her and he said to her, he said, "Look here," he said, "We weren't killing birds, man." I said, "Well, why are you's covered in blood then?" So he said, "My uncle has canaries, he breeds canaries, and the cats chowed his canaries so we were just [foreign language] the cats a little bit." I said, "Oh okay." They're fine, I left it at that because I was none the ware of what had actually happened.

She just knows [crosstalk].

Christian Botha:

Her name is Meraai [crosstalk].

Speaker 2:

Christian, our private investigator, asked Tanya where we could find Meraai. Her real name, we discovered, was Francina.

Christian Botha:

What does she do for a living?

Tanya:

Oh, she stays at home. She's just turned 16 now.

Christian Botha:

16?

Tanya:

Yeah, she's only just turned 16.

Christian Botha:

And would she be at home now, she's not at school?

Tanya:

No, that was her mom and dad that were here now.

Christian Botha:

Oh.

Tanya:

We just come from looking for her because she did a disappearing act today.

Speaker 2:

Next, we set off to find her parents. Perhaps they would know where we could find her.

Speaker 10:

So on Tuesday morning she went to the shop, that's when she never returned.

Christian Botha:

That's the last you saw her?

Speaker 10:

That's the last I saw her. And then Friday night, she just gathered up all her things in a black bag you know, and like, her friend was waiting outside for her. And they went.

Speaker 2:

Her mother suggested that she might be staying in a suburb called The Quigney, so our private investigator set off there to look for her. He'd been so horrified by the killings, he'd offered us his services for free. A security company, National Electronic, also loaned us a spy camera. With all this help, and Christian's extensive contacts, one thing led to another.

We finally found Meraai working at an escort agency. She agreed to meet us, and confirmed what Tanya had told us. That she had been at the pool club that night. Then she told us more.

Meraai:

Can I sit down here.

We left, we rode down past the Orient Beach, and they stopped outside the [inaudible] hotel, in front of the shop. Then Stanley said to me, "Yeah, I must just wait here, they just going somewhere." So they left, and about 10 minutes later, I was actually wondering like where are these guys, and I took a slow walk down. And as I got to the aquarium I saw them down there at the bottom where the penguins were. And I was standing at the top, and I asked Stanley, "What are you's guys doing?" So he said to me I mustn't stress about it, it's none of my problem.

Then, the two Nel brothers moved out the way, and I saw what they were doing. Two Nel brothers were holding the penguins, and Sean was beating them, that I know for sure. They had them by their wings, their wings were open. They had them down like that. They actually laughed and joked about it afterwards. Making fun of it, as it was like the most fabulous thing that you can ever do. It was like, giving them an adrenaline rush or something.

I've never seen him do it, but I used to be, I used to get told about their meetings, what they do. The way they offer up their offerings. It might be satanistic, or they might have just done it for fun.

Speaker 2:

Now that we'd met Meraai, we decided to go back to her mother, to find out more about her. She told us to wait, there was something she wanted to show us.

Speaker 10:

She writes all like her favourite poems in here and her favourite pictures you know. But like I said it's-

Speaker 12:

The other book I can't find.

Speaker 10:

... mostly it's all her ...

Speaker 12:

I just can't find the pictures of the dolphins that she draws herself.

Speaker 10:

All her dolphins picture here, you know.

Speaker 13:

Yeah.

Speaker 10:

"I like to eat a lot. My favourite food is chips, pizza, hide ox hamburgers, macaroni and cheese, pork, chicken," okay, "and a whole lot more. My favourite animals are cats, snakes, dolphins, monkeys, dog, sharks, lion, leopards, cheetahs and more. My favourite colours is black and red, purple and white. I like to go the movies and go to the nightclubs."

Speaker 13:

You don't believe she would do this?

Speaker 10:

I would never believe her doing this. It's not that I protect her but I can't believe her doing this. This is really sick, you know. Like I've just gave, showed you, read this in the book. I mean, she won't write this in the book you know if she loves animals, you understand my point? And mostly her pictures in her room is also dolphins, you know, so.

Speaker 2:

Then she invited us inside. Meraai's family live with her uncle and his family in a small house. Neither of her parents are working.

While her mother made tea, she let us take a look at Meraai's bedroom.

Speaker 10:

[inaudible] cupboard. Actually just means [inaudible], all that she gives a lot of trouble you know, sometimes cheeky but I mean, they get at that age that she's cheeky.

Speaker 14:

I haven't changed ...

Tanya:

She's unpredictable. I know Meraai, I know ... I mean, she lived with me. I know all her tricks and trades, I mean I don't know how many times I caught her climbing through the window, trying to get out to boys.

Speaker 15:

Out of her mind.

Speaker 16:

Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 17:

She's like totally weird.

Christian Botha:

Do you think this Francina's telling the truth?

Speaker 16:

I have no idea.

Speaker 15:

[foreign language].

Speaker 18:

Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 17:

Yeah I don't think so, hey.

Speaker 18:

I think she [crosstalk].

Speaker 17:

No.

Speaker 15:

[crosstalk] more than the truth.

Meraai:

It doesn't help keeping something bottled up inside. As if you let it go, it's actually a lot better. I actually feel a lot better, that I told somebody about this, that can actually do something about this.

Speaker 2:

After giving us the interview, Meraai asked us to take her to the police.

Meraai:

Stanley, I'm actually very frightened of. The other three I don't have a problem with. With them, I can take care of myself. 'Cause I know they will not hit on a woman, that I know for sure. But Stanley, he will. He will do anything and everything to keep his name clean. And they actually thought that I was gonna cover up for them, but I did not do that. I actually broke my promise to them that I made, that I'll never get them into trouble. I actually broke my promise.

Speaker 19:

The public might think that this is a cut and dry case, which it is not. I believe that some people are not honest with us, and I believe that we dealing with young people. Some of them have been involved with activities that are illegal. Some of them has, I think had a raw deal in life. The issue of satanism did come up, one witness did mention that one or two of the suspects could be involved in that. But up to now, we have found no proof of that.

Speaker 2:

Meraai had named four boys. The next day, two of them, Sean [Nas] and Stanley, were brought in for questioning. The police couldn't find the other two, the Nel brothers. We found Stanley's lawyer at the police station.

Speaker 20:

Yeah, he's in custody at the moment.

Speaker 13:

Okay.

Speaker 20:

Apparently the police are arranging a search of his premises as we speak. And they want to send certain clothing for forensic testing. I've spoken to my client, he hasn't got a problem in principle that he says that they're going to find nothing. And he welcomes that, in fact.

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Later we went back to Stanley's house. He agreed to talk to us, on condition that we only use the interview once he'd been charged, since he still hasn't been charged, we can't play it to you. His lawyer did, however, give us a statement. It says that Stanley denies any involvement in the attacks, and believes that the accusations against him could only be as a result of mistaken identity.

Sean Nas is another one of the boys Meraai had implicated. He agreed to speak to us.

Sean Nas:

I don't care what the people think, really, because I know I never did it. It's up to the people what they wanna think, but I know I never did it. And I know the lord knows who did it, and there will come out. So it will get found out who did do it. That I know. The truth will come out. That's for sure.

Speaker 13:

Yeah, so why do you think she would say that?

Sean Nas:

No, I really don't know.

Speaker 13:

Okay.

Sean Nas:

It's because if you in the [foreign language] lane you looking for friends to be in the [foreign language] with you because you don't wanna be alone in the shit.

Speaker 19:

We've questioned some people, but they've now come up with alibi's.

Sean Nas:

Then the Saturday we went to On The Rocks there, pool place, but we went there in the daytime because me and another guy, Marius, we were still diving down the bottom there. We still dive sinkers out. After that we came home, we had a braai at home. And we were at home and the whole Sunday we were sleeping at home.

Speaker 19:

And some of the other witnesses have given us different names than this witness has given us.

Tanya:

One of my friends, Priscilla, went out with the one of them. She went out with Ryan. And there were a few times that we went to their house, and went and sat by them and they're in Southernwood, and the room just said it all. And they made their fire in the bucket and they sat and they were staring into this fire. And Ryan said to ... Sean Nas and them were all with them, Ryan said to Sean, "Yeah, do you see that?" So Sean said, "What do you see?" He said, "Don't you see it?" So now me and Priscilla are [foreign language] so we were like, you know, we want to see what are they actually seeing this thing. Now we staring at this fire, he says, "No, don't you see the devil talking to me?"

Speaker 2:

Tanya and Meraai had both referred to the Nel brothers. It turned out, that they weren't talking about the same brothers, they were all Nel's, but their first names were different. There was a lot of confusion and we never managed to track them down. Finally, Meraai offered to take us to the house where she claimed they'd been staying. But they weren't there either. The new tenants had moved in the month before, and they didn't know who the previous tenants were.

At this point, the police didn't have enough evidence to charge the boys, but because she'd confessed, Meraai was arrested and charged. She pleaded guilty to malicious damage to property and was found to be so by the court.

Speaker 22:

A 16-year-old girl has been released into the care of her parents. She will appear in court again on the 11th of September, for sentencing.

Meraai:

[foreign language].

Speaker 12:

You [inaudible] hey?

Meraai:

Yeah.

Willie:

I think I talk on behalf of everybody in East London, and I think South Africa, that you know, this kind of thing should be exposed. People must know who do things like this. If I can choose what should happen to these people, I would like to see them with T-shirts on that says, "I did it." Doing community service at the aquarium, scrubbing these pools for six months in the public eye.

Is that Francina?

Meraai:

[foreign language].

Willie:

[foreign language].

Meraai:

Disappointed?

Willie:

[foreign language] disappointed. [foreign language]?

Meraai:

[foreign language].

Actually just realised what I've done.

They look so harmless, and look what we did.

Speaker 2:

Having come face-to-face with the penguins and Willie, Meraai finally told us what she'd told the police in her confession. That in fact, she had been involved in the killing, and wasn't merely a witness.

Meraai:

Well, I didn't actually told ... I didn't tell you guys that I was involved in, I told you guys that I was ... saw them doing it. But to the police I couldn't lie, so I told them that I had some involvement with it. Like, with the pelican, the big bird, that got killed too. I was involved in that.

Speaker 13:

And how were you involved in that?

Meraai:

Well, I was the one that killed the pelican. So that's ...

Stanley called me, he was holding the bird, and he said to me yeah I must wring the things, I told him, "I don't want to." So he said to me, "Well, you just have to." Was like, telling me, "If you don't do this there's gonna be big trouble." So I just did it. I actually felt like I was wringing my own neck, by the way. It actually felt like that, it felt like I was tearing my heart out of my own chest.

Willie:

I think I will be able to forgive her for what she's done, she's a child. But I really think that she's got an opportunity to show that she has good in her, and helping the police by apprehending the other culprits, whom I believe were the instigators.

Speaker 2:

After meeting Willie, Meraai asked to come with us to see Sean Nas. She'd named him as one of the perpetrators. He had denied being involved. Both were nervous about the meeting.

Christian Botha:

Is it him?

Meraai:

No, it's not this guy. Really it isn't.

Speaker 23:

It's not that guy?

Meraai:

That is not this boy, I know this [foreign language] from Wesbank and it's not him.

Sean Nas:

[foreign langauge].

Speaker 23:

This is not him?

Meraai:

I went out with one of his friends.

Speaker 23:

Yeah?

Sean Nas:

You must say, you see, even she says it's not me [inaudible].

Meraai:

Sean Nas. That's how Stanley introduced him to me. But this is not the guy that was with.

Speaker 23:

Yeah, I said in the beginning, Sean was innocent and I'm just glad that this been proven now.

Meraai:

The Sean that I'm speaking about is tall. This [foreign language] is short. He's even shorter than me. No I mean, this is not him.

Sean Nas:

I asked, "What's gonna happen?" Maybe Stanley should come.

Speaker 2:

To date, Meraai remains the only one found guilty. The one shouldering the blame for this shared crime, that has filled the dingy bars and run-down suburbs of East London with rumours and remorse. The question remains, "Why is this landscape littered with the shards of so many broken lives?"

Speaker 1:

It's unfortunate that Meraai is still the only one found guilty of killing the penguins. Hopefully more arrests will follow because it would seem as if she wasn't the ringleader. And on a positive note, a private security company has donated a surveillance camera to the East London Aquarium. The penguins can now be monitored throughout the night. And that's our programme for this week. I'll be back next week, see you then. Goodbye.

Speaker 24:

If you have any comments or suggestions, phone, fax or email us at truth@sabc.co.za.