On the 28th year anniversary of the disappearance of 9-year-old Matthew Ohlsson, who vanished from outside of his home in Mitchell’s Plain, his mother has shed light on her fears that he might have been trafficked - and how during the early stages of the case, a news report that he had run away, nearly destroyed her and her family.
Nearly three decades later, Michelle Ohlsson, an author, mother, grandmother and founder of Concerned Parents of Missing Children, shares how she grew to understand how others dealt with loss and feared that her son might have fallen victim to human trafficking - a topic only now widely discussed as opposed to the year 1997.
To learn to live without knowing where her son was, Ohlsson even removed photographs of Matthew and just left one in sight, where he could be seen in a palm of hands.
Matthew was attending Westville Primary School and disappeared on the morning of March 24, 1997, while collecting the refuse bin outside of his Westridge home.
He became a household name to residents in Mitchell’s Plain and Cape Town after his disappearance.
Four years ago, a woman from Rocklands, Mitchell’s Plain, who was a child at the time of the disappearance, came forward stating she had seen a boy fitting Matthew’s description crying at the window of a neighbour’s residence and handed the information over to the police.
This was also reported in the Weekend Argus's Cape Cold Cases series.
Ohlsson said the world has changed since Matthew vanished, as people became more vocal and aware about human trafficking.
“People will say if he wanted to come back, he would have come back already, people have no idea what the word human trafficking means,” she said during an interview with the Cape Argus this week.
“I have learnt what the word means and it is a terrible thing.
“It has nothing to do with your colour, or money, or your richness or being poor, this world is just evil.
“Human trafficking has been coming on for years and people chose to turn a blind eye and it is only this time that people are speaking freely about it.
“Today there is more education about it, I had to educate myself.
"I had to ask myself how did that happen, Melanie just came in and he (Matthew) just vanished.
“I had to build another character of myself for the sake of not going down. You need to have will power.”
She said at the time following Matthew’s disappearance, news headlines claimed he had run away due to abuse and that dented the case and her family’s life.
She believes this had a negative impact on the investigation.
“Now you have an auntie who said we saw him but nothing came to the parents of what they saw, it was written in a police file,” she explained.
“When I hired a private investigator, he read in the police files, the child is a runaway, the child is abused.
“It was stated also by the mother.
“The first person I spoke to was the investigating officer, I remember him coming into my house and him asking me, can you go and get the weapon that you used when you hit him (Matthew) that morning.
“I said this is my hand, I use my hands. I do not use weapons on my children.
“I said where did he get his information.
“Who did he speak to before coming to see me?
“A week after that, the Plainsman came out and the headline was that Melanie, his sister, said Matthew threatened to run away.
“That is how my daughter’s words were changed and I never trusted the media again after that.
“I phoned the newspaper the next day and they said the reporter cannot reveal the source.
"She did not come to me, she trusted the words of her source but she messed up our lives.
"I told myself, I am the mother, there is no way I can put it behind myself.
"I tried that many times by removing his pictures and belongings.”
When asked about the investigation thus far regarding the child witness, police spokesperson, Wesley Twigg, said: “In response to your media inquiry kindly be advised that no criminal case was registered for investigation. The enquiry with Mitchell’s Plain FCS Unit and there are no new developments to report at this stage. Anyone with any information about this incident can contact Crime Stop on 08600 10111.”
Bianca van Aswegen of Missing Children SA and a criminologist, said cold cases were not given the attention it needed and lacked support.
“Such as with the case of missing Matthew Ohlsson, there are so many other cold cases of missing children in South Africa. We have children dating back to the 1980’s that are currently still missing.
"A cold case unit dedicated just on missing children/persons will definitely have an enormous impact assisting with these cases. There is always hope in a missing child/person’s case, if no body has been found, there is always that hope that the child might still be alive.
“A cold cases unit would assist with new leads that might surface with these cases and dedicate themselves in solving these cases. There are answers out there on these cases, we just need more assistance in focusing specifically on these cold cases.
"There are many children going missing in South Africa daily, and the cold cases unfortunately do not get enough attention as they should due to the high number of current cases that take priority. Each and every case of a missing child/person no matter how old the case should get the attention and dedication it deserves.”
Cape Argus