Two life sentences were handed down to Mortimer Saunders in the Western Cape High Court yesterday.
The 41-year-old was found guilty of the rape and murder of three-year-old Courtney Pieters from Salberau, Elsies River.
Pieters went missing on 4 May last year. Her body was found nine days later, buried in a shallow grave in Epping Industria.
Western Cape Police provincial commissioner, Lieutenant General Khombinkosi Jula, has welcomed the sentence. “Crimes against children remain a top priority for the police and perpetrators of such crimes will not escape the long arm of the law,” Jula said in a statement.
