Abigail Ruiters, the mother accused of murdering her one-year-old son, was apparently threatened with a “hefty prison sentence” by a Kensington detective.
Ruiters, 30, and her boyfriend, Ameerudien Peters, 26, are charged with the rape and murder of little Jeremiah in June 2017.
It is alleged Peters, who was looking after the tot, raped, beat and then stabbed him to death at their Salmander Square home.
He then took the child to the local clinic, where the boy was declared dead on arrival.
Ruiters is charged with murder and child neglect under the Children’s Act.
Ruiters’s lawyer, Yasmin Rajap, was cross-examining Warrant Officer Cameron Morgan after he testified last week that he was the one who told officers to open a case of murder.
“Abigail says you told her she was going to jail for a long time,” Rajap stated, to which the cop replied: “I never said so.”
The Legal Aid attorney then stated: “She says she asked you why she is being arrested, she did nothing and you said it’s exactly because she did nothing that she is going to jail.”
But Morgan denied this, saying: “That’s not true.”
Rajap also said her client’s rights were not read to her, but Morgan said: “She was told about her rights, it was explained to her and she signed her SAPS 14A form.”
The mother has also refuted Morgan’s testimony that she told him Jeremiah had bitten and cut himself.
Rajap asked Morgan if anyone had interrupted him while he talked to Abigail, but he said no.
But Abigail said the cop lied, claiming that Jeremiah’s father, Wesley Timm, burst through the door and she shouted at him: “What are you doing here, Wesley? You said this wasn’t your child.”
Morgan said Ruiters was lying and that he’d never met Timm.