WHY DID HE DO THIS TO OUR GIRLS?

A trusted figure in their community was found guilty of murdering their daughthers, but the two devastated families are still struggling to find closure  

- PECULIA MUSHWANA

WHEN he speaks it sounds like his voice is made of gravel. Every word he utters about his beloved stepdaughter is overpowered by a choking heaviness and he has to pause numerous times to collect himself.

Sharron Arries (10) was full of energy and the life and soul of their household, Joseph Moos tells us.

Joseph (53) has had to take over the interview because his wife, Florina (38), finds it too hard to speak about the horror of what happened to her baby girl.

“My wife hasn’t been okay,” Joseph says. “She’s just sick, emotionally and physically. We’re missing our child.”

He says Sharron’s absence has left an unfillable void in their home.

“Every morning when we woke up, we’d hear her voice.”

The pain lingers all day and never goes away. “Every night when we go to sleep we talk about her because we miss her a lot,” Joseph says.

In September 2022, Sharron and her best friend, Jacorene Vaaltyn (9), went out to play in the little town of Albertinia in the Western Cape and never returned home.

After a frantic search their bodies were eventually found in a shack belonging to Timothy Ova, a man who often gave them sweets and who they both knew and trusted.

Joseph admits it was tough having to go to court and hear Ova protesting his innocence.

“Every time I had to face that man in court, terrible things came to my mind.” It was a relief when the George Circuit

high court recently found Ova guilty of two counts of murder. He’s due to be sentenced in April.