KEY POINTS
- TikToker claims Kelly Smith told her to stop searching for Joshlin.
- Kelly became defensive when questioned about her boyfriend, Boeta.
- Ganief noticed Kelly’s unusually dirty hands during their interaction.
Popular Shakeerah “Shakes Warrior” Ganief, a TikToker, testified on Wednesday that she was frequently urged to cease looking for her daughter by the mother of six-year-old Joshlin Smith.
TikToker recounts first encounter with Kelly Smith
The Western Cape High Court, located in the White City Multipurpose Centre in Diazville, Saldanha Bay, is where Ganief, the twelfth state witness, testified. She characterized her initial interaction with the child’s mother, Kelly Smith, as heated and combative. Two days after Joshlin vanished, and weeks before Smith, her lover Jacquen “Boeta” Appollis, Steveno “Steffie” van Rhyn, and former accused Laurentia Lombaard were caught, the meeting happened on February 21, 2024.
According to Ganief, who traveled from Cape Town after learning of the child’s disappearance, she became involved after receiving a call from someone telling her about Joshlin and requesting assistance. She had helped with a number of missing child instances, Ganief said.
According to Iol, on the evening of February 20, she had an unnerving video call with Kelly Smith. Ganief said Smith did not seem to be responding like a mother whose child had just disappeared and was evasive in her answers. According to Ganief, when certain questions were posed to Kelly, she got abrupt. Smith said that Joshlin had been with Boeta when asked where she was on the Monday before she vanished and who she had been with.
Ganief questions Kelly’s behavior during search efforts
When she asked more questions regarding Appollis, Smith became defensive, Ganief told the court. She inquired as to whether Boeta had done anything to Joshlin, pointing out that stepfathers, brothers, or grandfathers were frequently held accountable in cases involving missing children. But Smith responded violently. She said that Kelly was the “evil one” between them and that she did not know Boeta. Smith said Boeta always stopped her from hitting the kids when she wanted to. In her testimony, Ganief expressed her inability to comprehend Smith’s defensiveness when Boeta’s name was brought up in connection with Joshlin.
Ganief also observed something odd about Smith’s appearance throughout their conversation. She recalled that Smith’s hands were extraordinarily filthy—black, as if she had been digging in the dirt—for someone who claimed to have been cleaning a house.
According to Ganief, Smith refused to assist in the hunt for Joshlin. When she begged Smith to help with the search on February 21, Smith advised them to quit trying to find her child and let the authorities take care of the situation. But Ganief remained at Saldanha Bay until April, insisting she would not stop looking.
The trial goes on.
