Jana van der Merwe recently spoke to Samm Marshall on Morning Live about her book, Grave Murder: The Story Behind the Brutal Welkom Killing.

“We never saw these two suspects coming,” Marshall says in his introduction about Chané van Heerden en Maartens van der Merwe. Van der Merwe agrees: “I think what blind-sided everybody is that the two suspects who were finally convicted of the murder just did not fit the profile at all.”

Grave Murder is the seasoned journalist’s account of the brutal murder of Michael van Eck that took place in April 2011, in the sleepy goldmining town of Welkom.

“Both of them are very well-mannered, educated youngsters that had their whole future before them. I just didn’t understand why somebody would do something like that,” Van der Merwe says. “I think I wrote the book for myself to understand their psyche.”

“I went into the SMSes between the two of them and you could see that they created their own little world, their own universe, where everything they did and talked about was normal.”

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Also read:

• “Die skryf van die boek was by tye ’n baie traumatiese ervaring” – Jana van der Merwe oor Grave Murder

• “Dit is donker waar hulle is” – Jana van der Merwe gesels oor Grave Murder (Plus: Uittreksel)

Book details

• Grave Murder: The Story Behind the Brutal Welkom Killing by Jana van der Merwe
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  EAN: 9781770227767
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