Lost …
Marleen Konings was supposed to arrive in Cape Town on December 29, 2003.
A third year student in multimedia at the Saxion Hogeschool in Enschede, the Netherlands, 24-year-old Marleen had come to South Africa as part of an exchange program in August. Towards the end of December she had finished her five-month internship at the Peninsula Technicon, working on a film about AIDS awareness. The Netherlands-South Africa Exchange has brought some 12,000 students to South Africa over the past two decades.
Marleen and another student, Eva Schaefers, decided to tour along the picturesque Garden Route in the southeastern Cape. Eva received news from Germany, however, that her mother had taken ill, so her vacation ended prematurely. Marleen drove her to the airport on December 21.
On December 28, Marleen phoned one of her friends in Cape Town, ending the conversation with “See you tomorrow,” according to the Cape Times of January 9, 2004. But tomorrow came and did not bring Marleen with it. Winneke Lobeek was worried. The two had been friends for eight years, and it was completely unlike Marleen not to call. Attempts to reach her cellular phone met with failure.
It seemed that Marleen Konings was missing.
On December 31, Winneke contacted the police. It was not a good time to disappear.
Inspector Herman van Deventer got the docket. He discovered that Marleen had reserved a bed at a backpackers lodge in Cape Town for the 29th, and had already paid the deposit. She was last seen in Mossel Bay, in the company of a man by the name of Rob Cowley, and the two were believed to have left in her hired car in a westward direction. This had been on the 26th, already five days ago.
On January 2, Marleen’s father, Edwin, arrived in South Africa from Amsterdam to help find his eldest daughter.
Due to the holidays, the newspapers only published Marleen’s details on January 3. The Weekend Argus stated that she “was last seen wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt. She has a lip ring in the middle of her lower lip and two earrings in each ear. She also wears a toe ring and bracelets.” It mentioned that she was driving a silver Toyota Tazz and provided the registration number. Still, by the time the public was able to read her description, she’d been missing for a week.
It did bear some fruit, though, as a doctor from Riversdale—55 miles west from Mossel Bay—contacted the police. Apparently, he had treated Marleen on December 27 for food poisoning.
Another person phoning from the same town claimed to have seen the girl at a gas station. She had been in the company of two men and had appeared well and uncoerced.
Marleen’s mother, Jose, and her younger sister, Lotte, flew in from the Netherlands to join in the search. The Konings family, Winneke Lobeek and other friends circulated flyers with Marleen’s photo on.
Meanwhile, the police had to make sense of conflicting information. Marleen was apparently sighted on Sunday, January 4, in Botrivier, a further 130 miles west from Riversdale, and still directly along the N2 national road to Cape Town. However, on Monday, her credit card had been used in Port Elizabeth, which is 225 miles east of Mossel Bay. Of course, it was not impossible that her credit card could’ve been stolen.
On Tuesday, January 6, someone phoned the police to say Marleen was seen in Betty’s Bay, a small seaside town along the R43 turnoff from the N2 at Botrivier. Investigators were hopeful that Marleen was indeed on her way to Cape Town, since this road would eventually get her there by meandering all along the coastline.
Still, it did not explain why no one had heard from her.
At this point, police became reluctant to divulge details to the press, since they felt the “coverage overseas sensationalized the information [leading to] misunderstandings and … unrealistic expectations,” according to Die Burger of January 8, 2004.
Winneke told the press that they weren’t coping particularly well. “One day is better than the other. One minute is better than the other. We all cry a lot,” Independent On-Line reported on January 8, 2004.
“We just want her back.”
Petros
On January 9, Western Cape Police Commissioner Mzwandile Petros assigned Capt. Piet Viljoen as head investigating officer. He wanted the search for Marleen stepped up a couple of notches. An accomplished detective, Capt. Viljoen had successfully headed numerous high-profile investigations, including that of German fraudster Jürgen Harksen.
Personnel at a youth hostel in Mossel Bay revealed that both Marleen—having taken Eva Schaefers to the airport—and Rob Cowley had been alone on Christmas. As a result they ate together and began talking. Marleen was described as friendly and vivacious. “She would talk to anyone,” one man said, according to the Cape Argus of January 19, 2004. Cowley told them that he was from Botswana—a neighboring country to the north—where he was a pilot. He had, however, been in a serious aircraft accident, leaving him in a coma for several years. After he awoke, he went to the UK, where an article in a newspaper led to a book contract.
One employee described Cowley as “nice” and “genuine”, according to the Cape Argus of January 19, 2004, while another one saw him as “too friendly”, according to Die Burger of January 14, 2004. He was in his mid-40s and spoke English with a heavy Afrikaans accent. Cowley and Marleen slept in separate rooms and did not appear to have been physically involved. They left together on December 26.
Eva Schaefers had last spoken with her friend on December 24 on the phone. On December 28 she received an SMS from Marleen, saying that she had left Mossel Bay with a fellow traveler, but that she thought the two of them had contracted food poisoning. The very next day a Dr. Smith called her from Marleen’s cellular phone. He said Marleen had been admitted to the Medi-Clinic in Robertson—a town 42 miles northwest from Swellendam along the R60—with food poisoning. When Eva asked to speak to her, Dr Smith said that she was sedated and unable to speak. Eva was unable to reach Marleen afterwards.
Police also learned that Marleen had stayed at a Swellendam guesthouse, along with Cowley, from December 26 to 29. Swellendam is 50 miles from Riversdale on the N2 en route to Cape Town. Cowley came in alone to book the room at Lulu’s Place, and told the owner, Lulu Rohlandt that they had been traveling from Mossel Bay. Along the way they had helped a stranded motorist, who then promised them free lodging at his guesthouse in Barrydale, 27 miles northeast of Swellendam via some smaller roads and a winding mountain pass.
Later that evening Cowley sat outside smoking with Lulu’s husband. Cowley spoke about his former job as a Botswana Air pilot, his accident and how he had needed reconstructive surgery to repair his face. He said he could now only work as a co-pilot, but also gave computer instruction to bank employees.
Cowley and Marleen slept in one room. The next morning he paid and told them that Marleen had been sick throughout the night, vomiting. Lulu phoned a doctor, but he couldn’t see her. The two left, but returned towards the evening. The Rohlandts were surprised since Cowley had said they’d be staying in Barrydale.
Marleen seemed better, but the next morning, December 28, Cowley was sick. Marleen paid the bill, and said that she should actually leave for Cape Town to meet some friends, but she didn’t want to leave Cowley while he was ill. The Rohlandts were leaving for a short holiday themselves, but decided to let the two stay for free. On the 29th, Cowley phoned them at their holiday spot, thanking them. But when the Rohlandts arrived at their guesthouse on Tuesday, January 3, the keys weren’t in the mailbox as promised. There was just a note, containing the following message according to Die Burger of December 3, 2004: “The trust in us and that you went out of your way to help us will never be forgotten. We will surely remain in contact. We wish you a peaceful and magical new year and may all your dreams come true. From two grateful friends, Rob and Marleen. Ps: Watch the local newspapers.” The Rohlandts thought that Cowley would publish some kind of thank you. Although Cowley left a phone number, they were unable to reach him to retrieve the keys.
On January 8, 2004, vacationers discovered a deserted handbag on a trout farm in the vicinity of Uniondale. Inside were some clothes and documents, seeming to belong to Marleen Konings. When police learned of this, a search was organized. On Sunday, January 11, they found some clothes, including underwear, in a ravine about 164 ft from the road. This discovery, some 187 miles east of Swellendam, was disconcerting to the investigating team.
On Monday an identikit of Rob Cowley was released to the press. The owner of the Wimpy fast food restaurant in Oudtshoorn, 140 miles east of Swellendam and 58 miles north of Mossel Bay, contacted the police. He said that both he and his wife recognized the man in the identikit and the photo of Marleen as a couple who had eaten in their restaurant on January 6. The two had appeared to be involved in a serious conversation at times. According to the Cape Times of January 15, 2004, the restaurant owner said that the man “looked nervous and I thought he was not happy with the service at first. He is one of those kinds of guys you just don’t like. There was something funny about him and he looked like a second-hand car salesman.” Apparently the girl looked at the waitress “as if she was looking for help” or simply stared out in front of her. The man also kept looking around.
On January 13, a silver Toyota Tazz, believed to be the one hired by Marleen, was recovered near Colesberg. Colesberg is 200 miles northeast of Beaufort West, which is in turn a good 215 miles northeast of Oudtshoorn. It was indeed Marleen’s hired car, and forensic experts converged on the scene to initiate a close scrutiny of the vehicle. They found no traces of blood or any other evidence of foul play.
The next day a detective arrived from Holland to assist in the search. He was just in time for the first major breakthrough.
Meanwhile, Leon Rossouw, a private investigator from Bloemfontein specializing in tracking stolen cellular phones, was using his contacts and expertise to trace Marleen’s phone. He found it in a nationwide second-hand store, in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth. It had been sold by a man named Dave McGraw on January 5. He had also peddled a car radio which turned out to have come from the hired Toyota Tazz. At another outlet of the same chainstore in the same city, police would later recover Marleen’s Minolta camera, sold by “CRR Cowley”.
A second phone linked to this man was traced to a pawn shop in Mossel Bay, where he had sold it on December 23. It actually belonged to a woman from the Northwest province, who told the investigator that it had disappeared along with a man who had boarded at her house. Rossouw informed Capt. Viljoen of what he had learnt and that McGraw’s real name appeared to be Ferdinandt Mostert. Mostert, Viljoen discovered, was not a stranger to the South African Police Service. In fact, he was wanted on a parole violation. He had been released from a prison near Carolina, in the Mpumalanga province, in June 2003—having been incarcerated for fraud—and simply disappeared in November.
Mostert didn’t look unlike the identikit of Rob Cowley either.
Marleen’s simcard remained active and Rossouw determined that it was located in Upington, where calls continued to be made from whatever phone was now housing it. Following decent roads, Upington is 390 miles from Beaufort West in a northerly direction. On Wednesday, January 14, Capt. Viljoen found Mostert in a guesthouse. Mostert introduced himself as “Dave McGraw” and Viljoen initially played along.
At length Viljoen arrested Mostert for fraud—using Marleen’s credit card to pay for a room at a guesthouse in Beaufort West and signing in as “McGraw Ellis Konings”—and questioned him some more about the girl. Mostert stated that he wished “to do everything I can to help finding this girl,” according to the Cape Argus of December 3, 2004, but that he was suffering from amnesia. He would, however, provide the detective with information as it came to him.
After police took him into custody, they asked him to remove his clothes, which were sent for forensic examination.
Ferdinandt Mostert’s criminal career stretched back all the way to 1979, when he had been found guilty of theft and fraud in the Northern Transvaal—what is now the Limpopo province. Since then he has compiled a list of 21 convictions, mostly for fraud and theft, spanning all four of the original provinces of South Africa (since the African National Congress became the ruling party, the provinces have increased to nine).
In 1986 already, he had been declared a habitual criminal. He had received in excess of 30 years of imprisonment, and broke his parole conditions on each of the three occasions he’d been released early.
Upon granting Mostert parole in June of 1994, the Board stated that he was completely rehabilitated. If a 24-year-old girl weren’t missing, it would have been funny.
In April 1998, mere months after he had been released (again), Mostert was sentenced to eight years in Carolina, and incarcerated in the Losperfontein Prison. After he was released on parole in June 2003, Mostert boarded with a prison guard he had befriended while incarcerated. He stayed with Pieter Moolman and his wife until November, and was described as “helpful”, according to Die Burger of January 17, 2004. On November 20, 2003, Mostert accompanied Moolman to Nelspruit to go and purchase a car. Moolman had R15,400 ($2,525) on him. En route, Mostert gave him an energy drink and Moolman later passed out. When he awoke, Mostert was gone, along with the money. Moolman was admitted to hospital for poisoning. Mostert also had Mrs. Moolman’s cellular phone, which he later sold in Mossel Bay.
Earlier, Mostert had told the Moolmans that he had cancer and had even borrowed money from them for treatment at a clinic in Johannesburg. Despite the incident in November, Mostert still sent SMS messages to Moolman, the last of which was on December 2, claiming that he had only one month left to live.
The police determined that no one at the clinic had ever heard of Mostert, nor had anyone seen him before.
Despite claiming that he suffered from amnesia, Mostert told Capt. Viljoen that he would try to help them since he was the “only link who knows where she is,” according to Die Burger of December 3, 2004. While they were driving to Beaufort West, Mostert told the detective that he was having a flashback.
“I see a garage [gas station] near Barrydale with trees, then a turn after a garage to the left. On this road I see a picnic spot where I stopped,” he told Viljoen according to the Cape Argus of December 3, 2004. “I am sitting in the back seat left. I see the girl walking away across the road to the front. She does not return.”
On Friday, January 16, 2004, Viljoen and Mostert were driving in the vicinity of Barrydale. Mostert experienced another flashback when they entered the coiling Tradouw Pass—the R324 connecting the N2 from Swellendam to the R62 leading to Oudtshoorn. He told the detective to stop the car.
They made their way through some thick foliage. Quite some distance in Capt. Viljoen recognized the familiar stench of putrefaction. Mostert became increasingly reluctant and uncomfortable. Struggling further through the undergrowth, they found Marleen lying with her head in the water. She was fully clothed but badly decomposed.
In fact, Viljoen could not be sure that this was indeed the girl in the photos he had been scrutinizing the last week. She was provisionally identified based on her clothes and jewelry, but confirmation would be pending completion of the autopsy.
While forensic experts were still scouring the crime scene, the postmortem was being performed at Tygerberg Hospital near Cape Town. Professor Vince Phillips, who volunteers his expertise in forensic odontology, was called in to examine her teeth. After collaborating with Marleen’s dentist in Holland, he was able to make a positive identification.
Marleen Konings had finally been found.
She had been shot in the back of her head with a .22 caliber weapon. There was no evidence of sexual assault.
The Konings family, who were receiving some bereavement counseling, began with arrangements to return Marleen’s body to The Netherlands.
Detectives continued to question Mostert, and finally he admitted to having shot Marleen. According to him, however, it had been an accident.
This led to the discovery of a revolver—a .22 Llama—which was later positively linked to Marleen’s body. It had been in a hidden section of Mostert’s backpack all along. He had stolen it shortly after his release on parole.
Mostert described how he had met the blonde Dutch girl on December 24 in the Mossel Bay guesthouse they had both been staying at. Marleen came to sit with him and they began to talk. He introduced himself as Rob Cowley, a name he’d seen in an obituary. They discovered that they shared an interest in computers and ate together that night. They spent Christmas day together as well. Since he said he was also en route to Cape Town, Marleen asked him to travel with her.
The two set off in Marleen’s rented car on the 26th. Both became ill, though, and they visited a doctor in Riversdale, where they received treatment for food poisoning. They spent the night at Lulu’s Place in Swellendam. Marleen struggled to sleep and was nauseous and sick throughout the night, Mostert said, so he put Sepenax tablets in her bottle of mineral water. The following day, while driving around, they both drank from the same bottle, and both became ill again. (Whether this was related to the pills or something else is unclear.) This time they went to a doctor in Barrydale, but went back to Lulu’s Place towards the evening.
Although they had shared a room on a number of occasions, Mostert remained adamant there had been no physical relationship between them.
They left Swellendam for the last time on December 29, Mostert said, “and what happened further on that day you know about,” according to Independent On-Line on December 2, 2004. It would seem that this was the day, then, on which Marleen Konings had died.
Mostert agreed to repeat his confession at the magistrate’s office, which he did on Monday, January 19, before Magistrate Erna Grobler. According to Mostert, on December 29, he and Marleen had stopped in the small town of Barrydale to have some beer. They stopped again at the Tradouw Pass, because the student wanted to take some pictures with her digital camera.
“A little buck came out of the bush and ran across the road,” Mostert said, as quoted in the Cape Argus of December 2, 2004. “I took the firearm out and wanted to shoot the deer by the water. There was a river below. I followed it. She was standing taking pictures. As I wanted to shoot the deer, she started to scream. She turned her back on me and closed her eyes. I told her to stop screaming, but she did not. I fired a shot at her. She fell down and I just ran away up the hill. I got in the car and drove away.”
This shot that Mostert just “fired” at the screaming girl hit her in the back of her head, killing her. But it was all just a terrible accident.
Capt. Viljoen was not convinced. The evidence did not support Mostert’s story. The foliage and surroundings where Marleen’s body had lain made it impossible to stand there.
Mostert told the detective, according to Die Burger of December 3, 2004, that “the revolver was cocked. I don’t know why. And the trigger was very light.”
As he drove away, Mostert dumped some of Marleen’s clothes and luggage, while he sold the valuable items at various used goods stores. He also used her credit card on a number of occasions, while impersonating its owner, in particular to pay for lodging. When he ran out of money, he ditched the hired car near Colesberg.
Mostert ended his confession by telling the magistrate that he had lied about the amnesia. He claimed that he did so because he wanted help. “I wanted to find out why I did all those things all these years,” he said, according to the Cape Times of December 2, 2004. “Nobody wanted to help me. I have on several occasions in the past asked for help and I was just told to get the matter over and they will help me. It never happens. I just get put in [prison].”
During their conversations, Mostert asked Capt. Viljoen for a pen and some paper, which he wanted to use to write a number of letters. The first was to Marleen’s parents. “I am sorry that I can’t speak with you personally, but I have to speak to you,” Mostert wrote, as quoted in Die Burger of December 3, 2004. “You have lost a wonderful child and I lost a dear friend. Marleen wasn’t someone I just met, but we became good friends. She shared much of your family life with me. I am so sorry for what happened and can’t forgive myself at this time. Your loss is greater than mine and I will always pray for you.”
Mostert also wrote letters to people he had known in his past as well as the investigating team.
“Things weren’t supposed to be this way, but the truth will surface during the trial,” he wrote in one of the letters. “I have lied about so many things and now I regret it, but my feelings for you were real. I hope that someday you can find it in your hearts to forgive me.”
Meanwhile, the Saxion Hogeschool in the Netherlands had already logged almost 1,500 messages in its online register in memory of Marleen. Messages came from around the globe, expressing shock, compassion, outrage and fear. Another Dutch girl left the following message, according to Die Burger of January 23, 2004: “I’m still trying to recall what I was doing on that day when you had to experience mortal fear. I will light a candle for you.”
Mostert had been visiting a number of magistrates’ courts, facing preliminary charges ranging from the illegal possession of a firearm to robbery to murder. The prosecutor stated that numerous further charges would be added (relating to offenses committed in various provinces) and the Directorate of Public Prosecution was looking to obtain a centralizing order so that all the charges could be heard in one court.
Die Burger (Oos-Kaap) of January 22, 2004, spoke with a 62-year-old German woman outside the court. She had been residing in South Africa for some time, and made her opinion known with a sign reading: “Let the people decide that the death penalty should be reinstated.”
On January 23, Mostert was imprisoned in Oudtshoorn on his latest parole violation, where he began to serve the remaining three years of his sentence.
One of the numerous fraud charges the police were investigating countrywide against Ferdinandt Mostert related to the unlawful use of a credit card in the Northwest province in the late nineties. The credit card belonged to a released prisoner who had been jailed with Mostert. This man, Michael John Victor, had been found dead by a motorist with a flat tire on May 4, 1997, in dense foliage near Hartbeespoortdam in the Gauteng province. Victor had been reported missing a month earlier. He had been shot in the head.
Police discovered that Victor’s credit card was still being used, however. On May 17, 1997, Insp. Johan Grobbelaar received word that Victor’s red Toyota pickup was at a hotel in Badplaas in the Mpumalanga province. There was only one guest—Michael Victor. Insp. Grobbelaar found the dead man at the bar, conversing on a cellular phone. When he’d finished, the inspector identified himself and, on request, the man handed him his identity document. Insp. Grobbelaar folded it open. It said Michael John Victor and contained a photo of the man sitting in front of him. But the photo had been pasted in and very poorly at that.
A search of the man’s person yielded Victor’s credit card and the keys to the pickup. The man then stated that his real name was Ferdinandt Mostert. In his room, police recovered a backpack containing Victor’s check book, second credit card and cellular phone charger. There were also 36 bullets. Under the pickup’s front seat, they retrieved a Rossi .38 revolver, which Mostert informed the inspector had been stolen. He was then arrested.
Mostert claimed, however, that there was a reason why he was in possession of Victor’s belongings. Victor was attempting to dodge a police investigation against him. To that effect, he had traded his pickup for Mostert’s car and had told the latter to use his credit cards and check book all over the country so as to confuse the investigators. Meanwhile, Victor would be fleeing into neighboring Swaziland. There was no record of any investigation against Victor, nor any evidence that he had gone to Swaziland at any time.
They did find the owner of the revolver, though. It was determined that it had been stolen from a pastor in Perdekop near the town of Volksrust. Rev. Willem van de Wall met Mostert as “Richard Coetzee” in 1997 after the latter had been released on parole. Mostert performed a number of jobs around the house for the reverend, including fixing his ailing car. They grew to be friends. During one visit, when Mostert enquired about a safe he’d noticed in a bathroom, Rev. Van de Wall retrieved the key and opened it, showing him the revolver and ammunition it contained. When the pastor returned from vacation a while later, the .38 Rossi revolver and 40 bullets as well as a watch and a pair of spectacles were missing.
Michael John Victor had been no angel himself. On June 16, 1986, the 20-year-old waited an entire afternoon for his father, Sydney, aged 45, and his stepmother, Barbel, aged 36, to arrive at their home in Port Elizabeth. In his hands was a 9 mm pistol.
When his father came up the stairs, he shot him repeatedly and continued as the older man tried to flee in vain. His stepmother came running to see what was going on, and met with a similar fate. Victor made certain that his parents were dead by delivering close contact headshots. In all, 13 shots were fired and he had had to reload.
The similarities to the 1989 parricide by the Mendendez brothers didn’t stop at the details of the execution. During the trial, accusations were made that he had been treated very badly by both his father and stepmother. In fact, Victor testified that he had shot them in the head because he was afraid of them. After the shooting, Victor—who loved the Rambo movies and even acquired that nickname during his stint in the army—took his father’s car keys and drove off to the town of Knysna, where he was apprehended a few hours later.
Despite the fact that the crime was premeditated—not only had he stolen the firearm from the South African Defence Force, but also wore his army uniform so as not to be stopped at any roadblocks due to the Soweto Day demonstrations—Victor received a relatively light sentence at a time when the death penalty was still freely available. The judge found him to be immature and suffering from his parents’ divorce. Strangely, the judge also viewed his psychopathic qualities as mitigating circumstances. Victor was ultimately sentenced to 18 years, of which he would only serve seven.
He spent this time in the Zonderwater Prison near Pretoria, which is where he met a man named Ferdinandt Mostert. On June 17, 1994, both men were released on parole. Mostert would return to prison, but somehow got into contact with Victor in 1997. Meanwhile, Victor had apparently made some effort to build a constructive life. He worked for his cousin in Johannesburg, delivering furniture. The woman who managed the store characterized him as “really lovely and intelligent”, according to the Cape Argus of February 3, 2005, and believed that he was truly remorseful for the killings.
Victor had actually introduced Mostert to the manager. The last time she saw Victor, it was in a pickup alongside this man. This was on April 7, 1997. She phoned Victor on his mobile phone the next day when he failed to arrive at work. Mostert answered and informed her that Victor was ill and asleep. She was unable to reach Victor again on that phone. Mostert did, however, use this phone to call Victor’s uncle on a number of occasions, telling him that his nephew was fine and that Mostert was taking him to Port Elizabeth to visit Victor’s mother.
Victor’s badly decomposed body was found almost exactly one month later.
Despite all this, Mostert was never charged with Victor’s murder. The senior state advocate decided that there wasn’t enough evidence and a magistrate instead held an inquest. The magistrate ruled that no one was responsible for the death of Michael John Victor.
Presently, the police initiated an internal investigation into the original handling of Victor’s case. After all, had Mostert been imprisoned for the murder in 1997, he wouldn’t have been in Mossel Bay in December 2003 to meet Marleen Konings.
The trial began on December 1, 2004, in the Cape High Court. Ferdinandt Mostert stood accused of two counts of murder, nine counts of fraud, five counts of theft, two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, two counts of the possession of unlicensed firearms, two counts of the illegal possession of ammunition, and one count of violating his parole conditions. Twenty-three charges in all. Spanning five provinces—Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Northwest, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape.
Mostert responded by discharging his state-appointed attorney and informing the judge that he would be representing himself. Despite Mr Justice Dennis van Reenen’s misgivings, the accused expressed his belief in his own competence. The judge relented, stating that Mostert could reacquire representation at any time.
Mostert proceeded to plead guilty to 16 of the charges. Included in the remaining seven were the two murder charges. Marleen’s parents, who returned to South Africa for the trial, audibly voiced their indignation when he denied responsibility for their daughter’s death. Mostert declined to give any plea explanation related to these charges.
Nevertheless, he did plead guilty to fraudulently using Marleen’s credit card after her death and also to selling her stuff.
State advocate Jan Theron entered Mostert’s confession into evidence, but stated that the accused’s claim that Marleen’s death had been an accident was false. Instead, he held that Mostert had willfully lured her into the Tradouw Pass and killed her in cold blood. He then stole all her possessions, selling those he could and dumping the rest. Not only did he impersonate M. E. Konings on multiple occasions, but he even phoned her friend in Germany, trying to convince her that he was “Dr Smith” and that Marleen was in hospital, ill but otherwise all right.
On Friday, December 3, 2004, the Konings family visited the place where Marleen had been found just shy of a year before. They brought a stone memorial with them. “We experienced rage together with unbelievable sadness, while we also felt powerless because we couldn’t prevent what had happened to her,” Marleen’s father told Die Burger of December 7, 2004. But they were also moved by the numerous dried roses and messages of sympathy they found there.
The State called many witnesses, particularly relating to the two murder charges. On February 3, 2005, the prosecutor rested. On the following Monday, Mostert declined to testify on his own behalf, nor would he call any witnesses. Instead, he decided to merely argue certain points of the State’s case. Which meant that he could only argue based on evidence already before the court (the vast majority of which was entered in order to give credence to the prosecutor’s case).
Whatever he had intended to achieve with this move, the judge found him guilty on both murder charges. In addition, he said that, in Marleen’s case, Mostert satisfied the conditions for a prescribed life sentence.
“This attractive and wealthy student’s well-intentioned invitation for Mostert to travel with her in December 2003,” Judge Van Reenen said according to Die Burger of February 11, 2005, “was like manna from heaven for him.” He speculated that Mostert’s motive seemed to have been to “eliminate” Marleen so as to rob her of her possessions, and he specifically mentioned Mostert’s attempts to drug her.
Mostert was visibly disappointed. When asked whether he had anything to say to Marleen’s family, he replied that “nothing I say will change the matter. I pleaded not guilty on the seven charges because I’m not guilty of them. The court rejected what I said about it.” This last sentence is interesting, given the fact that he declined to give any evidence before the court.
A dejected Ferdinandt Mostert didn’t want to speak in mitigation of his sentence. The judge told him that it would be in his best interest to say something.
According to Die Burger of February 11, 2005, Mostert replied that “I believe everybody is responsible for what they do. We must stop making excuses. I made mistakes, but have to pay for it in an unfair way. I decided not to testify, because I wouldn’t be able to prove anything. It’s difficult to testify if you’ve got no evidence. It’s like digging your own grave. But everything that happened was because of circumstances.”
Victim impact statements represent a pertinent and welcome addition to democratic justice systems which frequently seem more geared towards setting the accused free than acquiring justice for the victims of violent crime. Judge Van Reenen allowed all the remaining members of the Konings family to speak. Some of their words were quoted in a second article in Die Burger of February 11, 2005.
Marleen’s father, Edwin, asked the judge to “please remove him from society and let him spend the rest of his life in prison … Just the thought that he might commit the same crimes in the future is unbearable.”
Marleen’s mother, Jose, was very sad when she spoke. “When your child dies, something inside you dies as well. A part of your identity is torn apart and it creates a hole. No loss in the world is crueler than being forced to live without your child. We couldn’t even say goodbye in a civilized manner. We weren’t supposed to say goodbye to her. We miss her.”
Marleen’s sister, Lotte, said that Marleen “always thought twice before she did something. Her only mistake was to trust a man who had ulterior motives with her.”
In Die Burger of February 12, 2005, Mr Justice Van Reenen told Mostert that he was “a person against whom society must be protected. The only way to do so is to remove you from it for a very long time.” Mostert was emotional, but it was too late. The judge described the murder of Marleen as “brutal, cruel and callous”, according to Independent On-Line of February 11, 2005. He believed the act to have been premeditated, and mentioned the lies Mostert told to both her friends and family as well as those of Michael John Victor.
Mostert received a life sentence for Marleen Konings’ murder plus 15 years for the robbery of her possessions. For Michael John Victor’s murder, he received 20 years. Another 46 years were added for the other charges. The sentences would be carried out concurrently.
Ferdinandt Mostert will be eligible for parole again in 25 years. Hopefully, if the Parole Board is still too gullible or uninformed or incompetent to deny him his freedom, the 70-year-old man will be too feeble to destroy another life.
Since Marleen’s fate had become known in January 2004, numerous people have stated that the crime could have happened anywhere. Ellen Berends, the Dutch Consular-General in Cape Town, referred to it as an “isolated incident”, according to Independent On-Line of January 18, 2004. Bas Olbe Hampsenk, the head of the Art and Technology Department of Marleen’s school in Holland, visited with her parents and the other twenty-odd students in South Africa soon after Marleen was found. According to him, in Die Burger of January 24, 2004, “it could happen any place in the world.” The same sentiment was shared by many students who continued to come to South Africa from Dutch colleges and universities.
Even Marleen’s parents held no ill feelings towards the country where their daughter had died. Her father told the press, in Die Burger of December 11, 2004, that “we receive so many messages from people who say how ashamed they are about what happened, but it’s not necessary to feel ashamed. It’s not South Africa’s fault.”
No, it’s not South Africa’s fault. And yes, Marleen could’ve been murdered in any country in the world. But it’s a sad fact that her chances to meet a violent end were much higher in South Africa. We have had one of the top rape rates in the world for more than a decade. I remember studying some statistics in Criminology back in 1997, and for the year in question—1994, I think—we were “bested” only by Rwanda … which was involved in a civil war at the time. And we don’t stand back for many when it comes to murder, either. In 2003-2004, Marleen was one of 2,839 people we know of who were murdered in the Western Cape, which translates into almost 8 every day in a small province in what is a small country. The previous year it was 10 per day, according to official police statistics reported in Die Burger of September 21, 2004. Writing this makes me very sad, especially since most violent crimes are committed against women.
Linza de Jager, in Die Burger of January 23, 2004, put this very well: “Africa is not for free range women.”
Marleen Elise Konings died on December 29, 2003. She came to South Africa to complete her studies and to make a movie about Aids. She was “a real, true friend,” Winneke Lobeek said in the Cape Times of January 9, 2004. Her father gave a short description of Marleen in the Cape Times of December 7, 2004:
“She was loving, spontaneous, joyful, honest and outgoing. She was a beautiful girl, very popular and full of life.”
Note: Dollar equivalencies calculated at $1 = R6.10. This doesn’t yield a monetary value that is directly comparable, however.