Heartbreaking Testimony and a Heartbroken Family
More than 30 witnesses gave heartbreaking information of Joshlin’s life and the circumstances surrounding her abduction during the six-week trial. Smith declined to summon any witnesses or testify, as did her co-accused.
Lourentia Lombaard, a state witness and neighbor, gave the most damning testimony in court. She claimed that Smith acknowledged selling Joshlin to a sangoma, a traditional healer, who desired her “for her eyes and skin.” “She said, ‘I did something silly,'” Lombaard testified. My child was sold to a sangoma. She said that before to the purported purchase, Smith even placed Joshlin’s possessions in a black bag.
Smith once offered to sell her kids for 20,000 rand ($1,100), but she would have taken $275 instead, according to testimony from another local preacher.
Smith allegedly claimed that her daughter was “on a ship, inside a container, and they were on the way to West Africa,” according to Joshlin’s instructor.
Smith’s defense team tried to undermine Lombaard by pointing to her drug use in spite of this mountain of testimony. But Lombaard refused to back down, saying, “She offered money to me and others in exchange for our silence.”
