GRAVE MURDER

The Story Behind the Brutal Welkom Killing

GRAVE MURDER
The Story Behind the Brutal Welkom Killing

Jana van der Merwe

 Published by Zebra Press
an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa (Pty) Ltd
Reg. No. 1953/000441/07
The Estuaries No. 4, Oxbow Crescent, Century Avenue, Century City, 7441
PO Box 1144, Cape Town, 8000, South Africa

www.zebrapress.co.za

First published 2015

Publication © Penguin Random House 2015

Text © Jana van der Merwe 2015

Cover photographs © Grave photo: Charl Devenish/Volksblad/Foto24;

Michael van Eck: Facebook; Chané van Heerden: Theo Jeptha/Volksblad/Foto24;
Maartens van der Merwe: Charl Devenish/Volksblad/Foto24
Knife: WO Ernst du Ru/SAPS/Local Criminal Record Centre Welkom

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the copyright owners.

publisher: Marlene Fryer

managing editor: Janet Bartlet
editor: Ronel Richter-Herbert
pro ofreader: Bronwen Leak
cover designer: Monique Cleghorn
text designer: Ryan Africa
t y peset ter: Tessa Fortuin

ISBN 978 1 77022 776 7 (print)

ISBN 978 1 77022 777 4 (ePub)
ISBN 978 1 77022 778 1 (PDF)
In loving memory of Michael Ignatius van Eck
14 August 1987–3 April 2011
 Contents

Author’s note........................................................................................ ix
1 Discovering the murder scene............................................................ 1
2 The search............................................................................................ 11
3 Leading the pack................................................................................. 19
4 The day of the murder........................................................................ 25
5 Along came a little girl ...................................................................... 33
6 The cell................................................................................................. 51
7 The courtroom.................................................................................... 55
8 The funeral.......................................................................................... 59
9 The monster of Welkom.................................................................... 63
10 Norman and Lilith.............................................................................. 71
11 The birth of a relationship................................................................. 79
12 The cemetery....................................................................................... 87
13 Making fantasy a reality.................................................................. 103
14 The advocate..................................................................................... 111
15 The dog that was spared................................................................. 119
16 Satan’s spawn?.................................................................................. 129
17 Psycho............................................................................................... 135
18 Serial skinner................................................................................... 141
19 Profiling a dangerous criminal...................................................... 147
20 The grave murder............................................................................ 157
21 Throwing away the key................................................................... 165
22 A cry for help – or not?................................................................... 173
23 Judgment Day.................................................................................. 181
24 Sleepwalker....................................................................................... 185
25 Maartens in the dock...................................................................... 193
26 Voice from the grave....................................................................... 211
27 The naked soul of a murderer........................................................ 217
28 Nightmares....................................................................................... 225
29 Justice is served................................................................................ 233

Notes................................................................................................. 239
Bibliography..................................................................................... 243
 Author’s note

It was shortly before midnight on Sunday 3 April 2011 when I learnt of

the story Volksblad was to exclusively publish on Monday’s front page.
In a state of utter disbelief, I went to bed thinking of the news South Africa
was to wake up to the next morning. The details of the murder committed
in the Welkom cemetery unfolded over the next days, weeks and months,
and each revelation was more shocking than the last. The memory of what
had happened lingered in my mind long after the killers were convicted.
In 2013 my former colleague at Rapport, Jacques Steenkamp, was in
the process of writing his first, now bestselling, true-crime book when I
told him of my idea to write a book about the crime committed in Welkom.
He urged me to contact his publisher, Marlene Fryer, at Penguin Random
House, and the rest is history. Thank you to my initial managing editor,
Ronel Richter-Herbert, who believed in this project so much that she
became my editor, and to my eventual managing editor, Janet Bartlet, for
all her help and support throughout the process.
Writing and, moreover, researching this book has been an emotional
and taxing journey, and telling this once-in-a-lifetime story would not
have been possible without Candice Botha, a former classmate from the
University of KwaZulu-Natal, who edited the first draft of this book. I can’t
thank you enough.
To all the major role players in this book who shared their stories
while they would rather forget: Lieutenant Ogies Nel, Advocate Johan de
Nysschen, Warrant Officer Eben van Zyl, Warrant Officer Lynda Steyn,
Danie Krügel, Warrant Officer Fanie du Plessis, Warrant Officer Ernst
de Ru, Professor Dap Louw, Doctor Sonja Loots and Brigadier Gerard
Labuschagne – my admiration for you transcends words.

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 grave murder

Thank you also to Ephraim Morolong and ‘Roy Verster’ for your assis-
tance. Roy is the only person in the book for whom a pseudonym is used.
The reason for this is because he has suffered tremendous abuse and
victimisation for being a friend of Maartens van der Merwe. The com­
munity and people on social media accused Roy of being involved in the
murder and for having known what would happen. He did not know and
he was not involved.
To my colleagues and friends Claudi and Annami Mailovich, Charles
Visser, Felix Dlangamandla, Mary-Ann Palmer, Pauli van Wyk, Vania van
der Heever and the rest of my colleagues and former colleagues at Volksblad,
Beeld and Rapport – you know who you are – your every word of encourage­
­ment got me here.
Words cannot express the love and gratitude I have for my family for
their unconditional love and support throughout my life and career – my
mother, Georgina, brothers Johann and Richart, Roxane, Nada, Keke and
my father JJK van der Merwe. A special thanks also to my partner Willie
Venter and his family, Dawie and Marita, Lelanie and Carl.
I pray for healing for the Van Eck family, Michael’s parents and sisters
who loved him and who were robbed of him so tragically.
My wish is that everyone reading this book will get a glimpse into the
psyches of the two serial-killers-in-the-making who were stopped before
they could kill again and gain insight into what was, in the opinion of many,
one of the worst and most perplexing murder cases ever reported on in
South Africa’s crime history.

jana van der merwe

johannesburg
o ctober 2015

x
 1

Discovering the murder scene

In the silence of his office, the graveyard supervisor startled as the cell-
phone sitting on his orderly wooden desk trembled unexpectedly.
Ephraim Morolong frowned as he looked at the name flashing on
the screen, the piercing sound disturbing the calm. He had arrived just
a moment before with the workmen to take on a hard day of overtime
labour at the Welkom cemetery instead of attending church that Sunday
morning.
Morolong, an upright middle-aged man with short salt-and-pepper
hair, had reported for work at 8 a.m. sharp to get a grip on the long grass
that had grown lush after the summer rains. The morning’s weather had
been pleasant and it promised to be a sunny day. The weather bureau
predicted more rain for that week, however, and for Ephraim this would
only mean more work for his already short-staffed team. He was in on a
Sunday himself hoping to get ahead on some urgent paperwork before
handing in his quarterly report on Monday.
Surrounded by flat, grassy, rural landscape, maize crops, cattle farms
and mine dumps, the Welkom cemetery is isolated from the mining city
of Welkom, which is set in the Goldfields of central South Africa, approxi­
mately 150 kilometres north of Bloemfontein, the Free State province’s
capital city. The city’s main burial ground lies at the foot of one of these
mine dumps, less than seven kilometres outside of the city and on the
R30 towards the town of Odendaalsrus.
This massive terrain, with at least 10 000 graves, had begun to look

1
 grave murder

increasingly downtrodden and unkempt over the years, the ever-increasing

number of graves having become overwhelming.
Ephraim had armed the small group of men and women, clad in dark-
green overalls and hats, with picks and shovels to get on with the day’s
work before he put on the kettle and settled down at his desk with his
paperwork.
‘Ephraim, you have to come see this,’ said the frantic voice in Sesotho
at the other end of the phone line.
Although locals would regularly tell one another that the cemetery is a
popular hangout for illegal miners, known as zama-zamas, who perpetrate
crime in the area, Ephraim had never had any problems.
Apart from all the burials he oversees every day of the week, only once
had he come across a dead body that was not brought there to be buried –
a father and husband who had come to the graveyard one night to put an
end to his life and financial woes with a single bullet to the head. Ephraim
found his ice-cold body the next morning between the entrance and the
parking lot. Another time, he had come across a young woman with her
head thrown back on the verge of unconsciousness in her small vehicle,
her breathing shallow. Ephraim hastily disconnected the hosepipe pumping
its toxic and suffocating fumes from the exhaust and jerked the other end
out of her car window. Smashing the glass to unlock the door, he dragged
her unconscious body to safety. She survived. The unsung hero continued
his work.
That Sunday, 3 April 2011, Ephraim could hear the alarm in Daniel
Ranthimo’s voice. Daniel, his trusted foreman and six years his junior,
had also just arrived, along with Ephraim and the others from the town-
ship of Thabong. He was pushing a lawnmower towards the yellow boom
gate when he made the find.
‘Wait, I’m coming,’ Ephraim said, and silenced the phone.

An hour earlier
At the Welkom police station, the 12-hour shift had hardly changed when
the chatting police officers enjoying their first early-morning coffee re­­
ceived a radio call. Two colleagues who had also started their shift were
patrolling the empty streets of the inner-city business district of Welkom
when a security guard alerted them to an apparently abandoned silver-grey

2
 discovering the murder scene

Peugeot 207 at the Zone 1 taxi rank. They noted that the vehicle was
unlocked, with the keys still in the ignition.
A quick search of the number plate on the South African Police Service’s
(SAPS) system indicated that the vehicle had not been reported stolen.
Leaving the vehicle in the care of a security guard at the Boxer Super-
store, the two police officers left the taxi rank to go and knock at the door
of the vehicle’s owner, whose address was situated in the leafy suburb of
Bedelia.

Ephraim approached his agitated colleagues, who were waiting at the yellow
boom gate. The boom was still down. Daniel led his supervisor to a large,
fresh pool of blood seeping through the tawny sand with which it had
been covered. Ephraim knew instantly: someone had bled out here like an
animal.
‘There’s more,’ said Daniel. Behind the boom gate Ephraim saw the
bloody smears leading up onto the tarred driveway of the graveyard.
Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he followed Daniel towards the
Jewish chapel, an uninteresting building of regular bricks, a brown slate
roof, white painted awnings and three small windows on either side. Near
it, in front of the Jewish burial ground, Daniel pointed at what looked like
more splashes of blood on the stone paving and grass. In the middle of
the patch of grass, a torn, blood-soaked rag lay discarded. Daniel bent
over to pick it up.
‘Leave it!’ Ephraim instructed.
He wandered to the left side of the chapel, where he discovered more
blood.
Ephraim told his colleagues to stand back. He gathered his thoughts
while he searched through the contact numbers on his phone. Before he
could make a call to his own manager at the Matjhabeng Local Muni­
cipality or the police, a vehicle with tyres screeching almost came to an
abrupt standstill before turning into the cemetery from the main road.
The vehicle drove through the stone-walled entrance with the rundown
signage that read ‘Welkom Cemetery/Begraafplaas’.
Once in the parking lot, the vehicle’s doors flew open. Two women came
running towards them, a man hot on their heels.

3
 grave murder

Naas van Eck and his wife, Henriëtte, were fast asleep in their home when
they were awoken by the bell situated on the electrified gate at the end of
their driveway.
Naas met the two policemen outside in the street. They explained the
discovery of the abandoned silver Peugeot in the city centre.
‘What abandoned vehicle?’ Henriëtte asked, now wearing a gown and
slippers. She looked at her husband for answers and then back at the police
officers.
One of the policemen recited the registration number starting with FS,
short for Free State, followed by the numbers the Van Ecks knew so well.
Henriëtte felt as if she had been stabbed in the chest. It was the registration
number of their son Michael’s car.
The 23-year-old had only had the silver Peugeot for about five months.
Six months earlier, he had been involved in an accident with his first,
brand-new Peugeot. He and his sparkling-blue vehicle had collided with
another car, whose driver had wrongly turned in front of him. Although
Michael was not seriously injured in the accident, the damage to the vehicle
was severe enough for his insurance company to write it off. Naas had
helped his son to replace the car with another new Peugeot, as Michael
had just started an internship as an electrician at the Beatrix Gold Mine’s
Shaft 4, also on the R30 but in the opposite direction of the graveyard,
towards Theunissen.
Michael certainly gave the impression of a spoilt brat, but Naas argued
that his son needed the car to get to work. The son, who had his father’s
strong features, appreciated his parents’ kindness, and vowed to pay them
back. He was exceptionally vigilant of his new car, which at night was
parked securely behind the very gates where they were now standing in
the yard.
Henriëtte noticed that the car was indeed missing, but Michael was
supposed to have left for work by then anyway. She felt uneasy as she walked
at pace to his flat, which was semi-detached from the house. She found it
locked, as expected.
Henriëtte brought out a spare key and went inside. She observed the
room. All the objects that were part of her son’s religious grooming ritual
lay about: a can of fresh, masculine deodorant, a hairbrush, scattered
items of branded clothing. His bed was made. Everything was just the way

4
 discovering the murder scene

it was before he had left the house the night before for an evening out
with a mystery girl. Henriëtte lit up a cigarette and phoned his cellphone.
It went straight to voicemail. It suddenly dawned on her that her and
Naas’s only son had not returned home the night before.
The distressed parents began by immediately phoning Michael’s three
older sisters.
Natasha, the oldest of Michael’s sisters, had left the nest years ago, when
she married a mineworker like her father. She detected a hint of panic
in her mother’s voice as she explained about Michael’s abandoned car.
Natasha’s husband, Ronald, also worked at the Beatrix mine, and they
decided he’d be in the best position to get hold of Michael’s supervisor.
When Ronald called, Barno Kruger confirmed that they had also
grown concerned. Michael had not arrived at work for his shift earlier
that morning. They thought he might be sick or had experienced car
trouble.
Henriëtte and Naas set off with the police to the taxi rank, frantically
phoning as many people as possible to try to determine Michael’s where-
abouts. His friends and colleagues knew nothing.
As they arrived at the taxi rank across the street from the Boxer Super-
store, the police and Michael’s parents looked on as a young black male
got in behind the wheel of Michael’s car, preparing to drive off. The store’s
security guard, who was supposed to be looking after the car, was evidently
missing in action – probably as it was towards the end of his graveyard
shift. The police and the Van Ecks came to a halt in their respective vehicles.
The father was the first to jump out.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ shouted Naas.
He wrenched the man out of the car.
‘Where is my son?’ he yelled, tightening his grip.
The police officers calmed Naas down and began to question the man
about what he was doing in the apparently missing Michael van Eck’s car.
The man, noticeably disabled, with one wooden leg, rambled on in slurred
speech.
By then Michael’s other sister Bianka and her husband, Andries, had
also come to the taxi rank to help in the search for Michael.
‘Dad! That bastard is getting into your bakkie!’ yelled Andries.
Henriëtte realised that not only had this drunk fool tried to steal

5
 grave murder

Michael’s car, another couple of men had now also seized the opportunity
to steal their car. Henriëtte fearlessly confronted them.
‘Oh,’ shrugged one of the men, ‘we got into the wrong car …’
The thieves took off down the street, their pathetic excuse left hanging.
Henriëtte could not think how this day could get any worse. Not only
was her son missing, but the police seemed completely incapable of tak-
ing charge of the situation. This unthinkable crisis had degenerated into a
circus.
Once the one-legged man was officially arrested, Naas and Henriëtte
proceeded to the Welkom police station.
The police grilled the would-be thief mercilessly.
‘Why is there blood on the car handles?’ They had discovered traces of
blood by the front handles on either side of the vehicle.
‘Where is Michael?’
‘What were you doing in his car?’
The police officials sneered as the man blurted out that his friend
Thabo had called him to pick up the car. He alleged that Thabo had
requested him to take it to the Sasol filling station in Long Road.
The police accompanied the man to the filling station and asked about.
Nobody there had any knowledge of a Thabo.
While the police were out questioning the thief about his friend, Natasha
called her parents, who were waiting at the police station.
‘Mom, Michael’s supervisor is at the house. He needs to speak to you.’
Henriëtte left her husband at the station to meet Barno Kruger in their
driveway.
‘The graveyard,’ Barno said, with no further explanation. They got
back into their cars and raced to the R30, heading towards the Welkom
cemetery.

Ephraim saw the women running towards him. He did not even have a
chance to phone his manager, never mind the police.
The older woman, stocky with short, bleached-blonde hair, was fol­
lowed closely by a much younger woman with long, dark-blonde hair.
Trailing behind them was a grey-haired man.
‘Michael, Michael!’ cried the stocky woman in a raspy voice, her eyes
darting across the terrain.

6
 discovering the murder scene

She turned to Ephraim. ‘Has anything bad happened here?’ she asked
him unexpectedly.
This was the first time Ephraim would meet Henriëtte van Eck and her
daughter Natasha.
‘We are looking for Michael. Michael,’ repeated Natasha.
Ephraim shook his head. He cautiously told her that he did not know
what had transpired there, but that they suspected they had walked into a
crime scene as they came to work.
‘There’s a lot of blood. Who is Mich—’
Mid-sentence, he saw Henriëtte freeze. She dashed to the torn, blood-
soaked rag on the ground.
‘It’s Michael’s!’ she exclaimed, as she fell to her knees. She held the
bloody T-shirt to her chest.
‘What’s going on? Who’s Michael?’ Ephraim asked.
Henriëtte stumbled upright, what was left of the T-shirt still clasped
in her hands.
Ephraim put out his arm, gently forcing her to put the shirt back down.
With increasing urgency she again began shouting for Michael.
‘Michael’s my son,’ she said, turning to Ephraim. ‘Have you seen him?’
Ephraim joined the mother’s search. Starting at the open graves, he
walked from one grave to the next. The freshly dug holes, ready for the
coming week’s burials, were already numbered, reserved and accounted for.
He knelt beside each and looked down into the dark depths. All were empty.
The existing graves, too, seemed untouched.
Ephraim felt relieved but mystified as to where this boy Michael was
and what could have happened the night before. He watched as the young
man’s mother followed a trail towards the pine trees on the outskirts of
the cemetery. For a short while she stood under one of the trees, looking
around, and then ran back to continue her search with renewed urgency.
But by then, unbeknown to anyone, her mother’s intuition had already
begun to prepare her for the worst.

Back at the station, the police officers, who had since managed to trace the
elusive Thabo, were informed by Naas van Eck that he had received infor-
mation from his wife. A piece of clothing apparently belonging to his son
and a lot of blood had been discovered at the Welkom cemetery.

7
 grave murder

Convinced that they had their suspects and a crime scene, the police
headed to the cemetery to solve the disappearance of Michael van Eck.
Guarding the main entrance to the cemetery, Daniel Ranthimo jumped
as a police vehicle came speeding towards him. The police shoved the
impoverished and confused one-legged man out of the back of the car.
Unsteady on his feet and in quite a state, he had by now begun to apologise
profusely for his lies. The bewildered Thabo followed him.
Thabo felt panicked. Not only had he been implicated in a crime he
knew nothing about, he had also managed to get himself entangled in a
serious domestic crisis. That morning, the police had arrived at his house,
where his wife and children were at home alone. His wife explained that
Thabo was out of town, visiting his parents in Bultfontein. Angered by this,
the police threatened to arrest her if she did not get hold of Thabo that
very minute. In a panic, she phoned her husband. With his wife on the
verge of being arrested, Thabo had to confess: he was not in Bultfontein
after all. He was, in fact, close by, visiting his lover. Thabo vehemently
denied the claims that he had instructed anyone to pick up a vehicle. He
did not even own a car.
The police did not believe a word he said. By the time they reached
the Welkom cemetery, they were sick and tired of the two suspects’ lies.
It was time they got answers. They had to hold back from assaulting the
two men.
As the first officers on the scene, they cordoned off the area and called
for back-up.
‘Tell us where you murdered him!’ bellowed one of the officers.
‘Where is the body?’ persisted another, while grabbing the thief by the
neck and shoving him towards the bloody T-shirt.
By now, with the heat of the day and adrenalin mounting, the rotten
stench of alcohol and tobacco hit their noses as the sweating man spoke,
shaking his head vehemently from side to side. Yes, he is a thief. Yes, he
wanted to take the car. But he is not a killer. On his mother’s grave he swore
that he did not know anything about the whereabouts of the vehicle’s
owner. He reiterated that he merely saw the vehicle, keys in the ignition,
and opportunistically took the gap.
‘I lied about Thabo. I’m sorry. All I wanted to do was use the car,’ he
cried.

8
 discovering the murder scene

The police continued interrogating the men about the evidence that
had been discovered.
‘Why is there blood on the car?’ a policeman asked Mr One-Leg.
‘I don’t know, I swear.’
Mr One-Leg confessed that he had been out all night partying and
boozing it up with two prostitutes. By the time he had arrived from the
tavern at the taxi rank early that Sunday morning, there were no taxis
running and he was too exhausted to walk home. He thought it was a sign
from God when he saw the deserted car with the keys still in the ignition.
He just wanted to give himself a lift home and then abandon the car again.
The officials began to realise that there might be some truth in what
the two men were telling them. The one-legged man was still very intoxi-
cated; his friend furious at the accusations.
The policemen knew they had to confront the inconvenient truth.
They had the wrong men.

9
 2

The search

Warrant Officer Ernst de Ru, from the local criminal-record centre in

Welkom, had been up early and working in the neighbouring town of
Theunissen investigating a house break-in when he was called back to
Welkom to attend a possible crime scene at the cemetery. He looked on as
the police’s dog unit in Bethlehem was alerted to join the search, as the
policemen on the scene had still found no trace of the missing man.
As a police officer with 23 years’ experience in the SAPS and 13 years
as a police photographer, De Ru remained at the boom gate knowing that
entering the boundaries of the crime scene could contaminate it further
with footprints or scent. While he and a number of local police officials
waited for the K-9 unit, it was difficult for them to observe the anguish of
the distraught Van Eck family as they waited for news. It was the first time
he had met the family, but he wanted to console them. He walked up to
Henriëtte, who was crying.
‘Don’t expect the worst, not before we’ve found him,’ he tried to soothe
her. She stopped crying only for a moment before she started all over
again.
Michael was her only son, he heard.
The Van Ecks were a family De Ru knew only by sight. His children
were much younger than those of the Van Ecks, but as a family man him-
self, he had often noticed them in the local shops and restaurants. De Ru
watched as they tried to make sense of this incomprehensible calamity –
the uncertainty unbearable.

11
 grave murder

Standing at the head of the family, Naas van Eck was the most com-
posed; a father trying to be strong and take control for the sake of his son
and family while the horror of what was happening tore at him from the
inside.
The mother’s and sisters’ tears would, over the next few hours, give
way to moments of calm as they experienced sporadic spurts of hope
while waiting together for news. It was this hope that Michael would soon
be found alive and well that gave them the strength to carry on.
At 12 p.m., veteran policeman Warrant Officer Fanie du Plessis from
the K-9 unit in Bethlehem put on his blue uniform and sorted his kit before
calling on Xander, a Canadian White Shepherd and his loyal companion
of the past 12 years.
An officer at the scene gave Du Plessis the bare minimum of infor­
mation. It was better that way. He was informed that the police had a
missing person: a 23-year-old white male. They strongly suspected that he
may have been at the Welkom cemetery the night before. They had by then
searched every nook and cranny of the area, and the officers on the scene
were convinced that if Michael was dead, if he was there at all, his body
was under the ground.
Du Plessis had been enjoying a lazy morning about the house, spending
the day with his wife and daughter, when he got the call to come out.
He learnt that his K-9 colleague in Welkom was unavailable. Although
officials would regularly stand in for one another if the situation called for
it, Du Plessis did not bargain on having to go as far as Welkom, a place he
rarely visited socially or for work.
Du Plessis was not told what Michael’s supervisor, Barno Kruger, had
shared with the team on the scene – the single important clue that had led
the family to the unlikely location of the Welkom cemetery.
Kruger, a grey-haired man with a moustache and glasses, had spoken
briefly to Michael shortly before he knocked off his shift on Saturday
2 April, the day before. It was to be his last conversation with his young,
ambitious employee. Michael told him about a girl he had met on a mobile
internet social-networking chat site, 2Go. Michael seemed uneasy. He men-
tioned how the girl had pressured him into agreeing to meet her in the
Welkom graveyard. He had not told Kruger the name of the girl, but had
mentioned that he was considering having a romantic date with her.

12
 the search

Kruger, himself a father, had warned Michael not to go. Such a location
would not be acceptable to most people, and Michael agreed that the
cemetery was indeed a bad idea. Kruger left it at that and they soon parted
ways. It would be the last time he saw the enthusiastic worker he had got
to know over the last three months.
Du Plessis had begun working with Xander as a homeless pup. When
a married couple from Knysna in the Western Cape went through a bitter
divorce, neither of them could accommodate their son’s dog. The day
the boy had to bid farewell to his beloved dog, having to deal with yet
another immense loss, would prove to be the day the SAPS gained a very
valuable asset. At 18 months old, Xander was the perfect age to train as
a search-and-rescue dog. With his playful, inexhaustible nature, he also
had the ideal temperament. Although smaller, equally enthusiastic dogs,
such as Jack Russells, could undergo the same police training, with their
short legs they do not have the stamina to cover vast areas over several
hours during official search-and-rescue operations. Xander did this effort­
lessly.
Over the years Xander and his master had dealt with hundreds of crime
scenes – collapsed buildings, missing persons and drownings – a fact
attested to by Du Plessis’s leathery skin, which had become accustomed to
hours outside in the harsh Free State sun.
One of the first, and worst, scenes Xander and Du Plessis ever attended
was the Saulspoort bus tragedy in 2003, where 51 people drowned when
the bus broke through the cold, murky water of the Saulspoort Dam situ-
ated just outside Bethlehem. (The dam has since been renamed the Sol
Plaatje Dam after apartheid struggle hero Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje.) The
victims were all members of the South African Municipal Workers Union,
and were travelling from Kimberley in the Northern Cape to an event in
QwaQwa, in the eastern Free State.
Xander and Du Plessis worked from a boat over a period of days to
search for drowned victims. Even in water, as the human body decomposes,
orifices release gases that cannot be detected by humans. Search-and-rescue
dogs, whose sharp sense of smell is conditioned to these scents, can direct
the handler to the body even if it is in a shallow grave underwater or under­
ground.
It took Xander and Du Plessis approximately two hours to reach

13
 grave murder

Welkom. While the team filled Du Plessis in on the situation and acquainted
him with the scene, he gave Xander time to sniff around.
The team of police officials was restless and on edge when Du Plessis
arrived. Although it had been a pleasant day, the weather had begun to
turn, and the threat of rain loomed as the clear sky turned cloudy.
Although he could feel the pressure, Du Plessis was not concerned. He
needed to give Xander time to settle in, but he did not want him to cross
the boundaries and relieve himself, thus contaminating the crime scene.
Xander, in turn, was excited and happy to be out of his cage in the vehicle
and in the fresh air with a whole bunch of new scents to explore.
Du Plessis took a moment to familiarise himself with his surroun­
dings. He observed the large pool of blood, the colour of which had now
turned brown, the drag marks, and the splatters and smears of the bloody
struggle that might reveal what had taken place the night before. He was
told that the blue rag, which had since dried, allegedly belonged to the
missing man.
When required to search for a living individual, Du Plessis would utilise
a piece of clothing that bore the scent of the missing person. He would
hold it to Xander’s nose and simply instruct him: Soek! (Search!) Xander
would then drop his snout to the ground and begin the chase. The dog
rarely missed his target. When Du Plessis suspected the victim was dead,
he would omit giving Xander the person’s scent. A simple Kry! (Find!) does
the trick. The dog was, like Michael, Afrikaans.
In South Africa, where crime is rife and resources limited, police dogs
such as Xander have to be skilled for any search-and-rescue scenario –
unlike in many first-world countries, where police services can train
specialised cadaver-sniffing or tracking dogs who can differentiate between
the dead and the living. Under-resourced dog units in South Africa have
to train dogs to develop both these skills, but this search would not be an
obstacle for Xander, who loved a challenge.
Du Plessis saw the terror in the faces of Michael van Eck’s family and
opted to go about his task determinedly. He had seen the vast amounts of
blood. Looking at the evidence at hand, and with experience gained over
the last two and a half decades, Du Plessis knew exactly how to instruct
his dog. He sometimes knew instantly what the outcome would be.
In this case, they were looking for a dead body.

14
 the search

Xander immediately comprehended that playtime was over when his

master put on his harness.
‘Time to get to work, Xander,’ Du Plessis said as he fastened Xander’s
work gear. Wagging his tail, it was obvious that the dog did not think of
this as work.
‘Find!’ Du Plessis prompted. Xander took off with his head in the air,
sniffing the soft, warm wind.
The area was vast. Usually Du Plessis would calculate in his head,
dividing the area into quarters. Looking towards the open area in the south,
he began at a point opposite the Jewish chapel, where more blood and drag
marks had been discovered. Against the wind, Xander set off towards the
outskirts of the graveyard. Task-driven now, he picked up speed along
the worn double track frequented by visitors along the Jewish burial site.
Du Plessis kept up, run-walking after his four-legged hunter with another,
younger police officer trailing a couple of metres behind.
As Xander approached the pine trees, he picked up momentum. He
grew increasingly anxious as he reached the boundary and his handler let
Xander run free.
With purpose, Xander came to an abrupt standstill. He began dig­­
ging decisively, his wet nose brushing a small heap of dry grass and soil.
Du Plessis soon heard the distinct, hollow, unsettling sound he had come to
know so well over his career. Xander had hit target in less than 10 minutes.
Du Plessis knew: the canine’s paws had found the victim’s body.
Du Plessis instructed Xander to stop.
‘That’ll do, boy,’ he said, while rubbing the dog’s furry white head.
He alerted the young police officer who, with a single nod, returned
to inform his colleagues. Soon the forensics team gathered at the shallow
grave, only covered by grass, leaves and sticks. A number of officers care-
fully removed the layers to expose pale white skin and what looked like a
pair of soiled dark-blue jeans with a metal button.
Du Plessis and Xander did not stay to watch as the police uncovered
the shocking discovery. Their work was done. Du Plessis had stopped
sticking around for the sake of his own sanity.
As he neared the end of the cordoned-off area of the crime scene with
a panting Xander, he briefly made eye contact with Michael’s parents.
Like a castaway on an island he isolated himself from the others.

15
 grave murder

Focusing on Xander, who was now lapping up some water, he sat and
waited, hoping that this would be the end.
It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
De Ru, camera in hand, accompanied the rest of the forensics team
to the cordoned-off area. Only then did he enter to begin strategically
contextualising the surroundings of the crime scene and documenting
each possible fragment of evidence found at the scene itself.
Using shovels, the police slowly and carefully began to unearth what
was hidden underneath.
Shocking even the most hardened police officer, it was difficult to make
sense of the scene unfolding before them. The dead man’s blood-soaked
blue jeans had been placed on top of his torso. Cautiously, the officials
exposed the macabre site, the naked, dismembered and decapitated body
of a young adult male gradually emerging with each sweep.
The police had to unpack the grave to take stock of what limbs were
present. The head, entire right arm and hand, and left foot were missing.
Both legs had been amputated at the knee. Visible pink patches on the
victim’s back confirmed that livor mortis had set in. Of course, the police
could not know for sure whether this headless body belonged to Michael
van Eck, and they hesitated to inform his family of what they had dis-
covered.
De Ru watched as the police put together the parts of the limbs like
a puzzle, as though trying to make sense of it. Lying there as if it were
a discarded partial plastic mannequin tossed under a tree, De Ru photo-
graphed the decapitated torso of the young white male.
The right foot, which was still present, looked superbly clean, almost
washed, the toenails neatly clipped and dirt-free. De Ru snapped away
as an officer wearing a pair of blue silicone gloves held up the deceased
man’s left hand, the palm showing deep cuts, defensive wounds indicating
a struggle. Blood had seeped under the neatly cut fingernails and was
clearly visible.
De Ru retraced his steps to where the slaughter was probably initiated.
He documented the pools of blood at the entrance, the now-dry drag
marks, a bloody footprint, the ominous smears of blood on the bright-
yellow boom gate, and the crumpled T-shirt. He walked around the Jewish
chapel, where he found more blood. Scrutinising the scene around the

16
 the search

chapel, De Ru’s trained eye looked beyond the more obvious indications
of a disturbance that Ephraim, Daniel and the others had discovered more
than six hours before.
He noticed a number of items that could forensically lead the police
to the killer or killers and which may potentially link the killer to the crime.
After photographing all of the evidence, De Ru dusted the items for finger-
prints, as one never knew what might ultimately be relevant. The items
included a small, empty condom package, a drinking glass with an elegant
black, floral print, used tissues and a couple of empty glassbeer bottles.
The police decided that it would be too traumatic for the family to
see the shallow grave. They had to find the missing head first and make
sure that they had the ‘right’ body. But what if the head and missing limbs
were not in the area? There had to be another way to establish the identity
of the victim.
As the Van Ecks were approached by the police, they could tell that the
officers had discovered something, although they were not forthcoming
with information.
‘What did you find? Is it Michael?’ Henriëtte asked anxiously. ‘Tell me!’
‘Henriëtte, wait! Officer?’ said Naas van Eck, his eyes begging.
‘We are not sure whether it’s your son, Mr van Eck,’ the official in­­
formed him.
Naas van Eck grew agitated. How were they not sure? They were not
going to keep him away.
‘I’m coming with you,’ he said, and pushed past.
As the clouds gathered and the rain loomed, Van Eck walked with the
police officials to the shallow grave site. Nothing could have prepared him
for what he saw. He looked at the contours of the back, the subtle dark
hairs, the light skin tone, the feet and fingernails. Naas van Eck did not
need a face to know.
‘Yes, this is my child,’ he said gravely, and turned his head. His hands, a
hairier version of his son’s, covered his eyes in an attempt to stop the tears
from dripping down his cheeks onto the soil.
Van Eck just managed to compose himself as he walked back to his
family, his wife and daughters waiting anxiously on any news. Naas would
never tell them what he had seen. Taking a stand between his family and
the grave site, his back formed a wall from the truth.

17