The self-confessed child killer Mortimer Saunders was found guilty of raping and murdering 3-year-old Courtney Pieters.
Judge Babalwa Mantame during the reading of her judgement in the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday said the only conclusion that can be drawn is that Saunders had penetrated the toddler with his penis.
Saunders claimed that he only penetrated Pieters with his fingers but the Judge said it was highly improbable that the semen came from his fingers.
The Judge said Courtney had gone through a great deal of torture and that Saunders' behaviour was the "most brutal, ruthless and vicious" her court had ever seen.
The victim's mother, Juanita, who had left Courtney and her older brother at home as she went to work, was granted immunity from prosecution.
Saunders was arrested in May last year after Pieters' body was found in Epping Industria, nine days after she was reported missing from her Elsies River home.
He denied raping her before she died but admitted to necrophilia. He also claimed that she died after he fed her ant poison because she had been disturbing him at the house he shared with her family.
The matter has been postponed until the 4th of December for a pre-sentencing report.
- African News Agency (ANA),
