By Associated Press
A South African woman was convicted Friday of kidnapping and selling her 6-year-old daughter in a case that horrified the country. The girl went missing more than a year ago and hasn’t been found.
Kelly Smith and two men — her boyfriend and their friend — were convicted of kidnapping and human trafficking over the disappearance of Smith’s daughter, Joshlin, who was 6 when she went missing in February 2024.
Smith — whose full name is Racquel Chantel Smith — was initially a figure of sympathy when her daughter went missing. Community members rallied around her and volunteered to help police search for Joshlin in the sand dunes near their poor neighborhood of shacks close to the west coast town of Saldanha Bay, around 120 kilometers (75 miles) north of Cape Town.
A photograph of Joshlin smiling and with her hair tied in pigtails was broadcast by news stations across South
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