Mother and son reunited after three years
Published: July 11, 2005
A seven-year-old boy who disappeared while playing outside almost three years ago has been found living in a flat on the same stretch of coast and has been reunited with his family in Macassar in the Western Cape.
Lincoln Otto was discovered dirty and hungry in a flat in Strandfontein.
“We’re just happy to have him back,” Lincoln’s mother, Serrina Otto, said on Sunday at the Macassar police station, where she thankfully watched her son playing on the grass after he was returned to his family.
“No one can believe that we got him back. Many people thought he would be raped or killed.”
Serrina was working as a labourer on a Stellenbosch strawberry farm in late December 2002 while her youngest daughter, Louise, who is now 19 with her own baby, was looking after Lincoln.
As Louise was having to do a night shift, she went to sleep and Lincoln went to play with a friend in Chris Hani Park opposite the house on Malgas Street.
When Serrina returned from work about 1.30pm, Lincoln was nowhere to be found. His mother went to the police station in Macassar to report his disappearance.
For two days Inspector CT Daniels - known popularly across the Peninsula as Captain Crime Stop, a costumed action hero who visits schools in Cape Town to give them safety tips - conducted a search that involved helicopters and divers in the Moddergatspruit where Lincoln had spent time swimming.
People in the community also participated in the search, Daniels said.
He had also brought Lincoln’s father in for questioning as, at the time, it was thought he might have taken the boy and left him with relatives in Paarl, Hermanus or another place where he had relatives.
Since the police did not find the boy’s body, Lincoln was declared a missing person, a case docket was opened and the investigation into his whereabouts continued but was hampered because Daniels did not have a photograph of the boy.
That was the sad situation until a day of activities for the school holidays on a Macassar field almost two weeks ago. A woman from Madalasbos, who suspected that the boy in a photograph that had been taken at a previous youth day was Lincoln, gave the photo to an administrative clerk at the police station, Dora Jooste.
Jooste passed the photo on to Daniels, who said Serrina “immediately recognised” Lincoln.
Daniels took it to the Strandfontein police station and asked if they could identify the building in the photograph.
They could, and Daniels and Serrina went to the building and found Lincoln sleeping in one of the apartments - dirty and hungry, with sores all over his legs. The family living there had given Lincoln the name of “Marco”.
“They didn’t want to give the kid back,” he said, adding that after some quarrelling, they took Lincoln away.
Daniels said it did not appear to be a loving home and, although there were several young children in the apartment, Lincoln was the only child there who appeared to be in the care of the woman who was acting as his mother.
The woman said she had found Lincoln crying in the bush on the day he had gone missing, and she had not wanted to leave him there. She had taken him to Strandfontein and reported to police that she had found him.
Daniels said there had been no communication between the two stations.
Part of the investigation now was to ascertain whether a report had been filed at Strandfontein police station.
No criminal charges have so far been brought against the woman.
After being reunited with his family, Lincoln spent the first three days in a Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse safe house where he underwent counselling with his mother.
Serrina said he played and ate throughout the night between sleeping.
“It’s not difficult to have him back. I’m talking every day,” she said, adding that the only difference between how he is now and how he was then is that he has become bigger and naughtier. She added that he had told her the people in Strandfontein had “stolen” him.
“He’s a little confused. He must be going through trauma but he’s finding his feet with his family,” Daniels said.
He said Lincoln recognised Serrina as his mother and has not asked any questions about his “other family”. Although Lincoln was a very quiet boy, Serrina said he swore at her a lot.
“I think it’s difficult for him and important to go through the process with the mother so they can bond again,” Daniels said.
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