There was a solemn sense of peace when family, friends, pupils and staff gathered at Beaconview Primary School in Beacon Valley on Thursday July 26 to pay their respects to Stacey Adams.
The memorial service was held to celebrate the young life of six-year-old Stacey whose body was found in a shallow grave near her home in Eastridge in June.
Teachers of the Grade 1 pupil remembered Stacey as being a helpful and friendly child.
“Hurt never goes away. We need to cry if we are hurting,” said Beaconview Primary School principal, Edna Hockey.
“Stacey was a bubbly person, always smiling. When I walked into their classroom she would always greet me with a smile. One day she ran out of her line just to come and greet me. Stacey greeting me with a smile is what made my job worthwhile. The brutality of her murder is what’s so hurtful.”
Stacey’s class teacher, Nozipho Mhlana, said: “Stacey sat right in front of the class. She was very disciplined and neatly dressed. I never had problems with her. I used two learners in my class to collect the books and Stacey would get up without me having to ask her, to collect the books with the two learners. She would fetch the books for her classmate. I will miss her smile. Even if Stacey came late she would still smile. Losing a learner from my class for the first time isn’t easy and I never expected this to happen. She was a beacon of hope for all of us here at Beaconview.”
Bilqees Ismail, Dantay Davids, and Charnay van Wyk, all aged 7, were among Stacey’s closest friends at school.
Bilqees said: “My mom asked me if this was my friend from school. I knew when I looked at the picture in the newspaper it was Stacey. I was very sad when I heard the news. I will miss playing chukka-chukka treintjie on the field. I will draw her in my book to remember her.”
Dantay said: “She shared her crayons with me, as I really loved how she drew. She shared her bread with me too. I am going to miss her being in class now that she is gone.”
Charnay said: “She played on-on with us on the field. I will miss her dearly as she was a good friend.”
Grandmother, Laeeqa Adams, with whom Stacey lived, said she would miss her only grandchild.
“She was so jolly. She was full of life and a pure drama queen, I am going to miss the whole package. She would not have gone if this man was a stranger to her. She called him pa. I fetched her at school especially when her mom worked. There are no words to describe this. It would have understood if the person died of an illness or something, but I child dying to murder, the way she did, you would want to understand why, what the reason is for this. I am going to get through this but I will never forget.”
A 25-year-old man has been arrested in connection with Stacey’s murder.
He appeared in the Mitchell’s Plain Magistrate’s Court on Monday July 23 and the case has been postponed to Thursday August 16.