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A man who raped and murdered his girlfriend’s 6-year-old daughter by beating her with a pan was sentenced to life in jail in the Western Cape High Court.
Christopher Brown entered into a plea agreement with the State after confessing to killing Stacey Lee Adams last year.
He further admitted to strangling an ex-girlfriend and mother of his son in 2015.
Stacey Lee lived with her grandmother in De La Rey Street, Eastridge in Mitchells Plain, across the road from where her mother Sasha lived with Brown in a wendy house.
On Saturday June 23, 2018, she had gone to see if her mother was in. Sasha had, however, gone to Delft for the weekend and Brown had been home alone.
He confessed that he had raped and sodomised Stacey Lee, choked her and threw her on the ground before striking her with a metal pan twice over the head.
Brown then shoved Stacey's dead body into two plastic bags and hid her under the bed while he cleaned her blood from the crime scene, he admitted.
He then burnt the fabric used to wipe up her blood and buried her little body in a shallow grave next to his wendy house.
Petrol bombed
News24 reported that after her body was found following a mass search, residents were so enraged by her murder that they petrol bombed the main house on the property where her remains were found.
Following his arrest for the rape and murder, Brown also confessed to killing his former girlfriend Thulisa Lavisa, 22.
The case against him had previously been withdrawn for a lack of evidence.
Lavisa, Brown and their son had lived together in a rented room in Mandela Park, Khayelitsha before she moved out in August 2016 after Brown had assaulted her by striking her in the face and choking her for arriving late from work.
She had asked him to move out and when he refused, she and their son moved in with her mother.
A month later, she had gone to collect her clothes. Brown admitted to attacking her and strangling her to death.
He had hidden her body under his bed. A family member found her body the next day.
Two life sentences
He was arrested two days later, but the case was withdrawn shortly thereafter.
Brown was handed two life sentences for Stacey Lee's rape, another for her murder, a fourth for killing Lavisa, six months for assaulting her and three months for assaulting his brother when he had tried to enter the wendy house on the day he murdered Stacey Lee.
National Prosecuting Authority provincial spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said it was satisfied with Brown's sentence.
"The Western Cape is experiencing high levels of attacks on women and children and the courts have to show that such cannot be tolerated. The NPA has prioritised and will continue to prioritise violence against women and children by ensuring that designated and experienced prosecutors deal with such cases," he said.
"The decision to prioritise such cases is bearing fruit and we will continue to push for harsh sentences for those who commit such heinous crimes."
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