The man arrested after 6-year-old Stacey Adams' body was found in a shallow grave near her home in Eastridge is expected to appear in the Mitchells Plain Magistrate's Court on Wednesday, Western Cape police said.
Lieutenant Colonel André Traut said the man will face a charge of murder.
However, the girl's family has not been able to identify her body yet.
"They are still busy with the autopsy on her," Stacey's grieving grandmother Laeeqah Adams said.
She added that her daughter Sasha-Lee was coping - with her help - after the discovery of the once-bubbly child's body near a wendy house in Eastridge.
On Monday, she had a photo of the little girl attached to the zip of her top as she spoke about her child.
Hostile reception
On Sunday, the family discovered that Stacey had gone missing.
A search was launched and soon afterward police dogs were taken to a patch of soft soil in the front yard of a council house, where there are two wendy houses.
After the discovery of Stacey's body, some neighbours tried to get to the man in anger, even torching the house he was in when he was questioned.
He was taken out in a Nyala amid rubber bullets and stun grenades as some of the residents wanted to deal with him themselves.
Police Minister Bheki Cele received a hostile reception on Monday when he visited the family at Adams' home, across the road from where her daughter lived.
Residents complained that the crime scene had not been secured or examined properly, tipping one of the wendy houses and pulling out a large knife out from under it.
They also complained that police were lax in ridding their streets of drug dealers and that the government was not dealing with the severe overcrowding of backyarders - where people erect small wooden shacks because they can't find elsewhere to live that they can afford.
However, Stacey's grandmother said Cele assured her that the person who killed her grandchild would be dealt with.
"He mourned with us. He said justice would be served," said Adams.
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