“Orderick, mammie is jammer vir wat mammie gedoen het.”
These are the words that the mom of slain toddler Orderick Lucas allegedly shouted as she woke up crying, while the search for the one-year-old boy was underway.
The tot’s ouma Cornelia Scheepers, 51, revealed this at the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday as she returned to the witness stand for the second day.
In her testimony, Cornelia also named murder accused Melvin Volkwyn as the person who dumped Orderick in a drain.
The child was last seen on 24 March 2019, but it was only four days later that his mother Davedine Lucas discovered he was missing.
On 2 April 2019, his tiny body was discovered in a drain a street away from his ouma’s home and Volkwyn was charged with his murder.
This follows claims by Davedine that Volkwyn was the last person with the boy.
Cornelia told the court that after they visited the police station on 28 March, she had her suspicions and decided that both Melvin and Davedine should sleep at her house that night as she was afraid they would run away.
They were set to return to the police station the next morning while the search for Orderick got underway.
Cornelia stunned the court when she claimed that before Orderick had been found, Volkwyn had refused to walk near the drain where the boy’s body was found: “Ons het saam geloop van die polisie stasie na my huis toe,” she said.
“When we got to the drain, Melvin decided he would not sleep by us.
“Davedine urged him to come, but he said he could not walk past the drain, the drain where the baby was found.”
Melvin appeared shocked at Cornelia’s testimony. She also claimed that while they were looking for Orderick, Davedine woke up during the night crying: “As Davedine in die nag wakker geskrik het en dan het sy heeltyd gehuil, ‘Orderick, mammie is jammer vir wat mammie gedoen het’.
“I used to get up and tell her not to go on like that because she pulled down the curtains and beat the doors down.
“I sat by her to calm her.”
When she was asked to clarify what Davedine was referring to, Cornelia said she was not sure.
The ouma also revealed that Davedine was just 15 years old when she kicked her out of the house after she had abandoned her then two-month-old daughter, Chloe, for three days: “Sy het net die kind by my gelos.”
She also argued with her daughter when she noticed that Orderick had sores and illnesses and would hand the baby back, insisting Davedine take him to the clinic because, she said, “ek het nie vir haar die kind so gegee nie”.