Grave murder: The story of the brutal Welkom killing

Title: Grave murder
Author: Jana van der Merwe
Genre: Criminology
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Imprint: Zebra Press
Cape Town, South Africa, 2015
ISBN 9781770227767/ ISBN 978-1-77022-776-7
Softcover, 15 x 23 cm, 288 pages, several photos

Description:

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 and the rest is history. Writing and, moreover, researching this book has been an emotional and taxing journey. My wish is that everyone reading 'Grave murder: The story of the brutal Welkom killing' 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.