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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: So he's quite careful with this package. Starts to pull

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Speaker 2: it apart in a first letter that they come across,

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Speaker 2: and literally starts with the words, if you're reading this,

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Speaker 2: then I'm dead.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. This week on Wicked Words

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Speaker 1: on Exactly Right, in nineteen ninety nine, a woman named

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Speaker 1: Betty Katani went missing in Johannesburg, South Africa. She just

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Speaker 1: vanished from the restaurant where she was working. Then a

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Speaker 1: letter found thirteen years later changed everything. Author Alex Elisa

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Speaker 1: tells me about his book Cold Case confession a real

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Speaker 1: Agatha Christie story. So when we talk about the things

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Speaker 1: that are important about this story without ruining it for

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Speaker 1: all the listeners, because it's a really interesting story, what

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Speaker 1: do you say, what are the big things that you

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Speaker 1: want people to kind of learn a little bit when

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Speaker 1: they read this book.

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Speaker 2: I think that there are many many themes in this book,

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Speaker 2: but I think the one that catches your attention that

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Speaker 2: first is just how amazing lot of the stars lined

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Speaker 2: up to actually bring this story to life. This genuinely

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Speaker 2: is one of those one in a million, maybe one

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Speaker 2: in a billion stories. It's definitely the most fascinating story

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Speaker 2: that I've ever worked on as a journalist in over

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Speaker 2: twenty years. It really stood after me because of how

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Speaker 2: unlikely this entire story is and how kind of it

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Speaker 2: could really belong in a film, in a Hollywood film,

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Speaker 2: because it's just that unrealistic. And whenever I signed books,

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Speaker 2: I kind of rise inside them saying that the truth

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Speaker 2: wing is so much stranger than any kind of fiction

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Speaker 2: that you can come up with. And of course, this

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Speaker 2: particular story begins with a bunch of letters, A bundle

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Speaker 2: of letters if you liked, that had been hidden under

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Speaker 2: a carpet for many, many years. And then a routine,

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Speaker 2: a kind of a very regular renovation at that house

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Speaker 2: in Johannesburg. On an average day that folks were lifting

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Speaker 2: up the carpets found this bundle of confession letters. And

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Speaker 2: suddenly this mystery that had been lying dormant, slumbering away

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Speaker 2: for ten eleven twelve years, first to live and the

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Speaker 2: opening words of that confess I'm not making this up,

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Speaker 2: but genuinely, the first words of that first confession letter

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Speaker 2: that is found all those years ago. It goes along

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Speaker 2: the lines of if you're reading this, then I'm dead

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Speaker 2: and here's what happened. And so those were the first lines,

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Speaker 2: and I guess goosebumps kind of thinking about it still

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Speaker 2: all these years later, and then you start to go

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Speaker 2: down the kind of the main main avenues of well,

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Speaker 2: what if that letter had never been hidden, what if

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Speaker 2: it had never been found, what if it had just

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Speaker 2: been thrown in a dust, And would we still have

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Speaker 2: this story, would we have the spot, would we have

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Speaker 2: most importantly justice for a family that had been waiting

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Speaker 2: for it for so so many years. And we'll talk about,

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Speaker 2: of course, the characters and so on, but really this

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Speaker 2: is a story of a case that was lying underground,

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Speaker 2: if you like, and suddenly came to life through this

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Speaker 2: very very strange act and this kind of very strange circumstance.

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Speaker 2: So it's fascinating and it begins and it goes through

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Speaker 2: and for me, because I covered it as the trial

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Speaker 2: was going I wrote the book as the trial was

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Speaker 2: going on for four years, it has a very kind

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Speaker 2: of a natural narrative to it. I didn't have to

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Speaker 2: work hard to make this thrilling because I didn't know

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Speaker 2: how the story would end. And so as I investigated,

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Speaker 2: as I sat through the cause, as the surprise is

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Speaker 2: kept springing up on us. All of that is in

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Speaker 2: the book, and I think that's partly why it's had

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Speaker 2: the success that it has.

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Speaker 1: Are you a true crime author by trade or was

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Speaker 1: this your first true crime book?

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Speaker 2: So I am not an author by trade. I'm an

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Speaker 2: author by accident. I started ass as a journalist, and

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Speaker 2: so this is now going back to Johannesburg. I was

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Speaker 2: a community newspaper journalist. I started writing in those little

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Speaker 2: kind of community stories and then built myself up going

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Speaker 2: to mainstream journalism. I was working on kind of daily newspapers,

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Speaker 2: weekly newspapers and really kind of just an all found it.

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Speaker 2: I would report on Bryan the one day, the economy

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Speaker 2: the next day, how anything really that came along. I

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Speaker 2: had a really and still do have a big interest

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Speaker 2: in science reporting. But then kind of I carried on

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Speaker 2: that journey and obviously told more and more stories to

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Speaker 2: my journalism and eventually came across this particular story. I

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Speaker 2: was working for a news state by the time in

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Speaker 2: Johannesburg called The Star. It's kind of, you know, one

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Speaker 2: of those beautiful broad seats that are as old as

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Speaker 2: the city and I still get nostalgic thinking about its

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Speaker 2: offices in central Johannesburg. But anyway, so I was kind

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Speaker 2: of doing all kinds of different stories, and one of

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Speaker 2: the things that I was investigating was the drug trade,

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Speaker 2: so the kind of the dark underbelly of the city.

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Speaker 2: And I was put into contact with some special agents

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Speaker 2: who were working undercover at the time. They were called

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Speaker 2: the Scorpions, which is a great name if you're going

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Speaker 2: to be an undercover agent. So there were a law

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Speaker 2: enforcement agency and I was doing a little bit of time.

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Speaker 2: I was on the seats with them, just seeing how

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Speaker 2: the drug trade operators that were taking us around, and

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Speaker 2: so we made some really good connections in that world.

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Speaker 2: And a couple of years later, I got a call

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Speaker 2: from one of those agents and he put me onto

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Speaker 2: this particular story and said, you're not going to believe this,

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Speaker 2: And then of course he gave me that line about

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Speaker 2: the fact that this confession had been found under a

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Speaker 2: carpet and now they've been arrest and all of this

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Speaker 2: kind of mystery was starting to unravel. And so I

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Speaker 2: had moved over into reporting for radio by then and

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Speaker 2: jumped on the story and broke it on air. As

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Speaker 2: it became a story that I started to report on

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Speaker 2: as a radio journalist. But at the same time, my

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Speaker 2: kind of real passion was always writing, and so I

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Speaker 2: kept writing it, and very kind of quickly after the

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Speaker 2: trial began, I teamed up with PANDEC Millen Publishers, and

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Speaker 2: they said, you know, this is going to be a

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Speaker 2: great book, and I said, I could not agree more

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Speaker 2: with you, because it is. It's just an incredible story.

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Speaker 2: And I always came to being an author, and so

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Speaker 2: this was a great opportunity, and so that's how it happened.

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Speaker 2: I have contributed it to other books throughout my career.

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Speaker 2: But this is the kind of the big one that

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Speaker 2: I wrote myself, So no, I wouldn't call myself. And

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Speaker 2: also by trade, but I've been a writer all my life.

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Speaker 2: I've been a journst all my life, and so telling

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Speaker 2: real stories, I guess is a trade that I have had.

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Speaker 1: It definitely is a trade. Well, let's go back to

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine and just tell me you know about

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Speaker 1: the wherever you want to start. Actually, if you want

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Speaker 1: to set the scene for Johannesburg in that time period,

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Speaker 1: then and move forward with our main people.

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Speaker 2: Of course, So Johannaespurg is called the city of gold

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Speaker 2: in South Africa because it is where all of the

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Speaker 2: economic opportunity lies. So a lot of people from around

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Speaker 2: South Africa almost migrats into Johannaston to work because that's

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Speaker 2: where the money is, that's where the politics is, that's

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Speaker 2: kind of the working hard. We've got another city called

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Speaker 2: cap Tan, which is the beautiful part of it and

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Speaker 2: nah is the kind of gritty best where you can

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Speaker 2: go and earn money. So a lot of people would

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Speaker 2: move to Johannesburg. And of course, if you consider the

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Speaker 2: country's past, was a party eight there are a lot

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Speaker 2: of families that were moving into Johannesburg but having to

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Speaker 2: leave their own families behind in more rural settings. There

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Speaker 2: aren't other provinces, and that's just because of the way

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Speaker 2: that the country was divided up and segregated in the past,

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Speaker 2: that there were many different provinces, and one of them

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Speaker 2: it was called Eastern Cape. It was a kind of

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Speaker 2: a rural setting. If you can imagine the most magnificent

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Speaker 2: mountains and rolling hills. It's the home of Nelson Mandela,

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Speaker 2: for example. So in that space there was a woman

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Speaker 2: who was called Betty Katsani and she was born in

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Speaker 2: nearby George, but kind of grew up in the Eastern Cape.

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Speaker 2: And she was one of many children. I think there

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Speaker 2: were ten of them, and she grew up there and

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Speaker 2: eventually had children of their own. She had three children

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Speaker 2: of her own, and she came to Jhannersburg much like

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Speaker 2: many other people did, to work. She left quite a

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Speaker 2: big part of her family behind. Think Shooney had her

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Speaker 2: youngest child with her. He was only I don't think

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Speaker 2: the child was even a year old at the time.

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Speaker 2: So she was kind of earning the money sending it

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Speaker 2: back to the Eastern Cape. And the job that she

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Speaker 2: got in Johannesburg was as a cook and a really

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Speaker 2: interesting and famous restaurant called Cranks and Cranks was this

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Speaker 2: kind of mad house restaurant run by a really really

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Speaker 2: eccentric owner. There were kind of body dolls in the

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Speaker 2: ceilings and weird sculptures and they're welcome to the fabulous

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Speaker 2: Las Vegas signs, and it was really interesting. It was

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Speaker 2: quite kind of one of those institutions in Johannisburg where

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Speaker 2: people would come and eat party for the food, but

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Speaker 2: mostly for the experience, and so Bessie could finally was

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Speaker 2: I suppose an invisible cook at the back of that restaurant.

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Speaker 2: Nobody would have known her. She worked with many other

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Speaker 2: people there. One day she went to work. This was

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Speaker 2: now kind of going back in time. She went to work.

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Speaker 2: I think this was ninety nine, and she never returned.

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Speaker 2: She just disappeared. She just vanished and she was never

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Speaker 2: seen again. And it's hard to believe that she would

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Speaker 2: have gone somewhere because her children were still there. Her

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Speaker 2: youngest was being looked after, so I think she was

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Speaker 2: only about a couple of months old, and so she

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Speaker 2: just vanished and nobody heard again from Besi Katani for many,

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Speaker 2: many years until in fact, the confessional letter was found

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Speaker 2: in twenty twelve. So we're talking about a period of

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Speaker 2: thirteen years where her family had no answers. They just

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Speaker 2: they simply did not know she banished or base of

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Speaker 2: the planet. And of course her family went to the police.

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Speaker 2: They opened the case. But you know, if you consider

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Speaker 2: the kind of socio economics of the country, she was

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Speaker 2: living in a very poor area. The police station that

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Speaker 2: this was reported at was in a poor area run

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Speaker 2: by all kinds of other different crimes and so on,

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Speaker 2: and so the case was never really investigated, if you

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Speaker 2: like it, it was just one of those cases, one

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Speaker 2: of many others. There were no answers for anybody involved.

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Speaker 2: Her children obviously grew up not knowing what happened today mother,

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Speaker 2: and it was torment, and especially for one of her brothers,

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Speaker 2: who's called Mankinki. I think she was really really devastated

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Speaker 2: by it. He kind of carried the torch of trying

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Speaker 2: to get some answers. He was an older brother and

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Speaker 2: they got nowhere, and that was kind of just this.

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Speaker 1: It's hard for me to imagine a situation where there

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Speaker 1: was a woman I know she was an adult and

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Speaker 1: she could run off and do things if she wanted to.

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Speaker 1: But usually, you know, I'm used to stories at least

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Speaker 1: that on an American base, where the police say, is

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Speaker 1: she likely to be someone to leave her one year

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Speaker 1: old behind or to leave you know, a family behind.

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Speaker 1: And so when you said they didn't really get anywhere,

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Speaker 1: the police didn't seem to make an effort because they

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Speaker 1: have other things that they need to do. I wonder

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Speaker 1: if you put that into perspective. And I know that

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Speaker 1: Johannesburg was underprivileged, but what does that mean she doesn't

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Speaker 1: live this high risk quote unquote high risk lifestyle, and

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Speaker 1: so why didn't they get attention?

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Speaker 2: I think for many, many different reasons. So I think

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Speaker 2: that there was definitely, you know, there wasn't much to

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Speaker 2: go on. I think, so there wasn't a huge amount

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Speaker 2: of evidence. But be that as it may, I think

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Speaker 2: if you had to start digging deeper into it, there

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Speaker 2: wasn't enough effort made at that time, and there are

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Speaker 2: lots of very complicated ingredients obviously playing there. But I'd

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Speaker 2: imagine that it's the combination of the fact that this

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Speaker 2: was happening in a high crime area, so you know,

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Speaker 2: kind of overrun by many other cases where the detectives

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Speaker 2: are overworked and overloaded. And so if you're a detective

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Speaker 2: carrying fifty forty fifty doctors, you can't give attention to

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Speaker 2: each one as you should. If you're in a wealthier

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Speaker 2: environment and was less crime, you know, you'd get one

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Speaker 2: or two doctors and you could really pull your arts

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Speaker 2: and solve into solving that particular crime. You know, South

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Speaker 2: Africa has and had various high crime rates as it is,

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Speaker 2: and so you know, this was not the only murder

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Speaker 2: or the only disappearance that was happening. There would have

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Speaker 2: been many many other things at place. So talking about

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Speaker 2: an overloaded system and obviously a system that still had

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Speaker 2: that applyed a prejudice working against it. She was, let's

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Speaker 2: say it, you know, outlast, she was a black, poor

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Speaker 2: woman who had come from another province to work in Johannesburg.

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Speaker 2: She disappeared into this kind of system, this bustling city

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Speaker 2: full of immigrants, and she vanished. And so you know,

250
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Speaker 2: unfortunately this wasn't some high profile case where all of

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Speaker 2: the best detectives got deployed and all of the resources

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Speaker 2: were poured into it. This landed up on the desk

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Speaker 2: of some overworked detective in a very poor area, was

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Speaker 2: a high crime rate, couldn't really know whether she had

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Speaker 2: been missing or not. Often it's difficult to track down witnesses.

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Speaker 2: Often even the families themselves kind of bought to make

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Speaker 2: the trip to town to testify and to give statements

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Speaker 2: and so on. So the wheels tend to fall off

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Speaker 2: very very quickly. And you know, I guess for all

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Speaker 2: of those reasons, it was not a very high profile case.

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Speaker 2: She wasn't young, and so that if she was a child,

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Speaker 2: maybe they would have paid her, but more attention to

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Speaker 2: a missing person docker at that fine. But yeah, I

264
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Speaker 2: guess you just kind of piled into that dad in

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Speaker 2: the system that was really struggling from that part era,

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Speaker 2: and you know, then fed in by whatever was happening

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Speaker 2: in a contemporary setting around that police station.

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Speaker 1: Did man can key her brother and the rest of

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Speaker 1: the family in eastern Kpe, did they have a gut feeling?

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Speaker 1: Did they look at the father of the children. What

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Speaker 1: was the situation there?

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Speaker 2: Yes, there was, there were There were many kind of

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Speaker 2: theories and ideas. The family was quite broad. Many of

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Speaker 2: them were still in the Eastern Cape. So basically Tini

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Speaker 2: had essentially I mean, she had three children, So Tulani

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Speaker 2: was her oldest. Then there was Bullelwa and Lusunder. Lusunder

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Speaker 2: was really really young at the time. She was a

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Speaker 2: baby when this was all happening, and basically tiny you know,

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Speaker 2: did not lead a stable life. She you know, she

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Speaker 2: wasn't married to one man. She had various partners. She

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Speaker 2: enjoyed partying, you know. So I guess no real kind

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Speaker 2: of stable home for anybody to just go into and

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Speaker 2: start to investigate. And so, you know, I think there

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Speaker 2: were some people who thought that maybe she had run

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Speaker 2: off somewhere. But I think her family from the extensive

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Speaker 2: interviewing that I did and the research and I mean

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Speaker 2: I traveled to the Eastern Cape and met the family,

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Speaker 2: and we actually, I mean when the book was being published,

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Speaker 2: we had taken a decision to help and support the

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Speaker 2: family through the sales of the book. And to all

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Speaker 2: of that, I think that the people who were closest

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Speaker 2: to her, the siblings who were older or her age,

293
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Speaker 2: never really believed that year just run off somewhere. I

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Speaker 2: think they knew that something had happened to her. But

295
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Speaker 2: the trouble is, you know, again, when you are from

296
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Speaker 2: a poor family from another province, it isn't easy to

297
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Speaker 2: come and knock on doors and raise complaints, and so

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Speaker 2: you kind of you do what you can. But unfortunately

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Speaker 2: they didn't get any justice in all of those years,

300
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Speaker 2: and I think they never would have. You know, as

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Speaker 2: I said right at the beginning, if the stars just

302
00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:33,760
Speaker 2: had into lined.

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Speaker 1: Was anybody the family or the police. Did anyone manage

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Speaker 1: to get any kind of insight from the people who

305
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Speaker 1: were working at the restaurant that night before she disappeared.

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Speaker 2: Not really. I think that there were a couple of

307
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Speaker 2: interviews that were obviously done, a couple of statements taken,

308
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Speaker 2: but nothing really points to do anything specific. And I

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Speaker 2: think that this definitely isn't the kind of case where

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Speaker 2: somebody kept assets just kind of slugging away for years

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Speaker 2: and years. This was a case where they did what

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Speaker 2: had to be done. In the beginning, there was nothing

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Speaker 2: shook out from the tree, and so they kind of

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Speaker 2: forgot about it and offered wentz. Then of course the

315
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Speaker 2: police officers detectives moving on to other things fairly quickly.

316
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Speaker 2: The kind of sense I got was that there was

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Speaker 2: a little bit of engineering done, a little bit of

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Speaker 2: prellminary work, but nothing major, nothing serious. I think there

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Speaker 2: were many threads there that they could have time of death,

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Speaker 2: that they could have pulled, but that just simply weren't.

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Speaker 2: And also, you know, bear in mind that's the owner

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Speaker 2: of the restaurants. His name is Eric. He fled Currentry

323
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Speaker 2: soon after all of the kind of the story unfolded.

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Speaker 2: But he wasn't an incredibly interesting and kind of mysterious

325
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Speaker 2: character himself. You know, he went on television under different names,

326
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Speaker 2: and he was kind of also this enigma wrapped in

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Speaker 2: the mystery, as they say, right, So he was he

328
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Speaker 2: was a really really just in characters, and so he

329
00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:06,480
Speaker 2: would have antioacity spun different tales and possibly even confuious

330
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Speaker 2: any investigators that have come at knocking you on those

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Speaker 2: doors in the early days. And his role in this,

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Speaker 2: although it's kind of detailed quite a bit in the book,

333
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Speaker 2: is one of these puzzle pieces that just never balance

334
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Speaker 2: your place. Because of course he played the country has

335
00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:26,120
Speaker 2: never been seen again. So you know, I think that

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Speaker 2: the detectives would have painted quite a difficult task trying

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Speaker 2: to make sense of what was going on in that

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Speaker 2: restaurant at the basic Et sign he disappeared.

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Speaker 1: You know, I don't do modern cases, but when people

340
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Speaker 1: do modern cases, like maybe the Gabby Patito case or

341
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Speaker 1: you know, the college students who were murdered in Idaho.

342
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Speaker 1: A gift to someone who's a storyteller is being able

343
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Speaker 1: to access the victim's thoughts, their fears and all of that.

344
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Speaker 1: And that's where social media is really helpful. It's not

345
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Speaker 1: helpful in a lot of cases in life, but I

346
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Speaker 1: think it is helpful there. You know, you're to access

347
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Speaker 1: so much. Were you able to get any kind of

348
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Speaker 1: insight about Betty, like from her own words? Do they

349
00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:10,200
Speaker 1: have letters? Do they have any video? Is there anything

350
00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:12,560
Speaker 1: that let you, you know, as a reader, would let

351
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Speaker 1: you connect to her.

352
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Speaker 2: I think that I connected to her in a great way.

353
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Speaker 2: For me many years, this was a story that never

354
00:19:20,560 --> 00:19:24,120
Speaker 2: leaves you. So you know, you will be showering and

355
00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:26,880
Speaker 2: it will come into your mind, you will be going

356
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:28,720
Speaker 2: on a vacation somewhere and it will be there and

357
00:19:29,040 --> 00:19:32,040
Speaker 2: two a day it's still very much deep inside me.

358
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Speaker 2: I remember I had a photograph of basic Aciey that's

359
00:19:36,359 --> 00:19:38,800
Speaker 2: established in the book, and it was a photograph of

360
00:19:38,840 --> 00:19:41,919
Speaker 2: her kind of being back against this very old calm

361
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Speaker 2: in a city. You know. So that postograph I think

362
00:19:45,400 --> 00:19:47,680
Speaker 2: was the beginning of my journey to try and understand her.

363
00:19:47,680 --> 00:19:50,520
Speaker 2: I puened it up in my office and kind of

364
00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:52,720
Speaker 2: just looked at it whenever I could, whenever I was

365
00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:56,840
Speaker 2: investigating it. But her life had to be reconstructed through

366
00:19:57,359 --> 00:20:02,399
Speaker 2: talking to her brothers, to her children, through going to

367
00:20:02,600 --> 00:20:06,080
Speaker 2: the Eastern Cape and walking the streets and kind of

368
00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:09,920
Speaker 2: trying to understand where she had come from in Queenstown.

369
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Speaker 2: It was through interviewing the people that she worked with

370
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Speaker 2: at Crimes restaurants. It was through interviewing people who were

371
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,280
Speaker 2: in that in that orbit, I guess at the time.

372
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Speaker 2: And so yes, the picture definitely did emerge.

373
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Speaker 3: You know.

374
00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:29,120
Speaker 2: It wasn't a need series of tweets and Instagram photographs

375
00:20:29,119 --> 00:20:31,440
Speaker 2: and so on, But I really got a sense of

376
00:20:31,880 --> 00:20:35,439
Speaker 2: her life, the parties that she attended in a suburb

377
00:20:35,480 --> 00:20:38,840
Speaker 2: called Hillbrow in Johannesburg, the work ethic that she had

378
00:20:38,840 --> 00:20:40,800
Speaker 2: become a kind of a mother figure to some of

379
00:20:40,840 --> 00:20:44,040
Speaker 2: the other women that were working in that particular restaurant,

380
00:20:44,440 --> 00:20:47,480
Speaker 2: The fact that she was feisty and fiery, and you know,

381
00:20:47,640 --> 00:20:50,560
Speaker 2: she didn't. She kind of stood up to Eric, who

382
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:53,040
Speaker 2: was the owner of the restaurant, and even though she

383
00:20:53,119 --> 00:20:56,560
Speaker 2: was quite intimidating and even scary to many people, she

384
00:20:56,800 --> 00:20:59,760
Speaker 2: kind of really stood up to him and that rose

385
00:20:59,840 --> 00:21:02,640
Speaker 2: up and challenged him, and I think there was some

386
00:21:02,720 --> 00:21:06,560
Speaker 2: respect there too. And so yes, I definitely got a

387
00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:10,560
Speaker 2: sense of a person who wouldn't just back down and

388
00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:13,240
Speaker 2: fold away, of a person who would stand up, and

389
00:21:13,240 --> 00:21:15,840
Speaker 2: that I guess fed into all of the mystery around

390
00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:19,520
Speaker 2: why she disappeared. But it was interesting and I definitely

391
00:21:19,560 --> 00:21:22,359
Speaker 2: did get it feel like I kind of I met her.

392
00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:25,439
Speaker 2: And I'm almost glad that it wasn't just a string

393
00:21:25,520 --> 00:21:29,280
Speaker 2: of social media, because you know, I don't know how

394
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:31,480
Speaker 2: realistic that is. I think the work that I did

395
00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:34,920
Speaker 2: was was far deeper. Was it was really going back

396
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 2: through the family into the person.

397
00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:43,879
Speaker 1: One more thing about nineteen ninety nine before we moved

398
00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:47,000
Speaker 1: forward in time. So who reported her missing? How did

399
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:49,000
Speaker 1: her family even know? Did she have like a weekly

400
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,240
Speaker 1: phone call and they and she missed it? Or was

401
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:52,240
Speaker 1: it somebody at work?

402
00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:55,960
Speaker 2: No, the sounder was a baby, and so she had

403
00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,560
Speaker 2: being looked after by I think it was relatives or

404
00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:01,159
Speaker 2: friends or whatever. The case, and be and and and

405
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:03,600
Speaker 2: when Vessy didn't come home, obviously there was an alarm

406
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 2: that went off. She had another brother who did the

407
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:09,920
Speaker 2: initial kind of police reports and things like that. When

408
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,119
Speaker 2: King she only came up later because you know, he

409
00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 2: was living in another province. So whoever she could gather up,

410
00:22:16,119 --> 00:22:18,960
Speaker 2: I guess in Johannesburg would have been the family that

411
00:22:19,480 --> 00:22:22,840
Speaker 2: initially sounded the alarm. But again it was you know,

412
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:24,840
Speaker 2: it was a week, it was a weak bell, and

413
00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:28,639
Speaker 2: it didn't ring particularly loud or particularly long before the

414
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:30,600
Speaker 2: doctor just began gathering dust.

415
00:22:30,920 --> 00:22:33,119
Speaker 1: Did you speak to the three children, I can't remember

416
00:22:33,119 --> 00:22:34,000
Speaker 1: if you said that or not.

417
00:22:34,440 --> 00:22:37,320
Speaker 2: I dealt with them all the way through Rise Up

418
00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:40,720
Speaker 2: until you know, the conclusion of the of the entire

419
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 2: trial and the entire case, when keeps her brother was

420
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:48,720
Speaker 2: definitely a crucial kind of link to the family. But yes,

421
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:52,639
Speaker 2: and and you know, we tell snippets of the children's

422
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:56,119
Speaker 2: lives to the book as well, because you know, I

423
00:22:56,119 --> 00:22:59,440
Speaker 2: don't know what it must be like to just live

424
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,959
Speaker 2: with that agon yield, having absolutely no idea what happened

425
00:23:03,000 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 2: to your mother. And of course, remember in South African

426
00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 2: some of the cultures and so on. It's really really

427
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:12,560
Speaker 2: important to be able to put spurs to rest, because

428
00:23:12,640 --> 00:23:16,600
Speaker 2: otherwise the ancestors remain restless. And so there's a huge

429
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 2: component to getting closure, and it's sending people to become

430
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 2: kind of ancestors and so on. So there's a real

431
00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:25,760
Speaker 2: spiritual angle to that. And of course, yeah, there was

432
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:28,320
Speaker 2: none of that because there was no body, There was

433
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:31,240
Speaker 2: no conclusion, there was no evidence, and so I think

434
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 2: that was an added layer of agony for her family.

435
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,360
Speaker 1: My first book, which was set in nineteen fifty two,

436
00:23:37,440 --> 00:23:41,400
Speaker 1: during the London smog, I interviewed she's now our grandmother,

437
00:23:41,560 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 1: but you know, she was thirteen at the time. Her

438
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:47,120
Speaker 1: father walked home through the smog and he had bronchitis,

439
00:23:47,320 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: and eventually he dies a few days later. She tried

440
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:53,800
Speaker 1: to save his life, and you know, they weren't from

441
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 1: a family that talked to each other very much. She

442
00:23:57,359 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 1: failed most of her you know exams, and you know,

443
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:03,879
Speaker 1: this was a crucial time for her and it changed

444
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:06,959
Speaker 1: the trajectory of her whole life. She had wanted to

445
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:09,240
Speaker 1: do one thing and then she ended up because she

446
00:24:09,240 --> 00:24:11,919
Speaker 1: didn't do well on these exams and she just couldn't

447
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 1: pull herself out of that because of her father's death,

448
00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 1: because of one person. It's just incredible how much, you know,

449
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:21,840
Speaker 1: certainly a parent, but even a sibling, anybody dying around you,

450
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 1: how much it can really affect you and the path

451
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 1: that you go on. So did you get a sense

452
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:31,480
Speaker 1: for what this did to the kids, aside from of

453
00:24:31,520 --> 00:24:34,240
Speaker 1: course being sad and mourning their mom and the uncertainty.

454
00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: Did this affect them in a way where it just went, boy,

455
00:24:37,800 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 1: this would have never happened had their mom not died.

456
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 2: It's interesting, as you said that, I got an image

457
00:24:43,119 --> 00:24:45,560
Speaker 2: of a kind of a glass or a mirror, and

458
00:24:45,600 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 2: there's an initial break and then the cracks just begin

459
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 2: to kind of blow out, And I think that really

460
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 2: is what happens here. I think those acts began to

461
00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 2: run the minute that she vanished. I obviously can't kind

462
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,159
Speaker 2: of sit down and sort of you exactly what And

463
00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 2: otherwise I suppose a family that was already struggling. You know,

464
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 2: there was very little money to go around. If you

465
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 2: imagine one person in a family earning many, many, kind

466
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:14,639
Speaker 2: of hundreds of comets away as a cook at a restaurant,

467
00:25:14,680 --> 00:25:17,480
Speaker 2: sending whatever she could back to the family. So there

468
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 2: was a really kind of a poverty that was a

469
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,119
Speaker 2: great disadvantage for the family. There was the distance, so

470
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:26,600
Speaker 2: growing up away from your mother was obviously something that

471
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 2: was also really difficult. But definitely for her youngest is

472
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:32,440
Speaker 2: under you know, I think the cracks would have been

473
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 2: particularly deep and particularly painful. And I think definitely, you know,

474
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 2: her life was affected by to a great extent. She

475
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:43,960
Speaker 2: was at school when some of the trial was playing

476
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 2: out and so on, and so that kept kind of,

477
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:50,800
Speaker 2: I suppose, interfering with her world. So the short answer

478
00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 2: to your question is, without adult it impacted that family

479
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 2: dramatically and radically. Did they already face hardship and struggle. Yes,

480
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 2: I mean this would have been a tsunami that kind

481
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:06,560
Speaker 2: of just washed over them, and everything else is obviously behind.

482
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 1: Well, let's move forward. This is an interesting discussion because

483
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: normally when we have these stories, there's a lot of investigation,

484
00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: and then when you get to thirteen years later, it's

485
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: not as robust because it's sort of like, here's the answer,

486
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 1: and here's kind of what they say happen. But because

487
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,120
Speaker 1: the investigation in this case was so inefficient, I think

488
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:30,439
Speaker 1: the most of the information is going to start now

489
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:33,680
Speaker 1: with the discovery of this letter. So we know, over

490
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 1: these thirteen years, the family gets no answers. She has

491
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: simply vanished. They have no idea of you know, she's

492
00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:42,359
Speaker 1: taken a boat to America or what's happened. So tell me,

493
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: like set the scene for where are we when this

494
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:47,680
Speaker 1: this stack of letters is discovered under a carpet.

495
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're I mean we're in Johanna Stakes Solt

496
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,040
Speaker 2: but a way away from where the restaurant is so

497
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,480
Speaker 2: deepen kind of the suburbs, and there's a very regular

498
00:26:57,560 --> 00:27:01,640
Speaker 2: house and there's renovation that's under way. There's a family

499
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 2: that's basically trying to get a new tenants in because

500
00:27:04,320 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 2: the old tenant wrecked the place. So there's a last

501
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:10,200
Speaker 2: minute scramble to try and clean the place up before

502
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:13,359
Speaker 2: the next tenants arrives. The previous tenant kind of had

503
00:27:13,400 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 2: this really annoying little dog that had feed everywhere, and

504
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,159
Speaker 2: so the house was mainly and the carpets were disgusting,

505
00:27:19,560 --> 00:27:21,919
Speaker 2: and so this family is frantically trying to get this

506
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 2: all together. And one of the things that they're doing

507
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 2: this is the weekend, and so one of the things

508
00:27:27,280 --> 00:27:29,240
Speaker 2: they're doing is they're ripping up carpets to get rid

509
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:33,000
Speaker 2: of the smell. And you know, one of the people

510
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 2: involved in us is that the youngster, his name was Jeffrey,

511
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:39,600
Speaker 2: and he pulls up the carpet, finds these letters and

512
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,920
Speaker 2: everything just pauses for a second, because why is there

513
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 2: a stack of blesses lying under the carpets. And Jeffrey

514
00:27:46,960 --> 00:27:49,199
Speaker 2: is a young man, but he kind of works at

515
00:27:49,200 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 2: a workshop, and so he's mechanically driven, and he knows

516
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 2: you don't just kind of start unscrewing gearboxes and things

517
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:57,959
Speaker 2: because springs will fly out and so on. So he's

518
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 2: quite careful with his package, starts to pull it apart,

519
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:02,959
Speaker 2: and as I mentioned earlier, the first letter that they

520
00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,480
Speaker 2: come across literally starts with the words if you're reading this,

521
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,959
Speaker 2: then I'm dead, and that obviously grabs their attention, and

522
00:28:11,040 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 2: they start to read to the rest of the letters,

523
00:28:14,160 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 2: and they're still trying to piece together what this lays do,

524
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,960
Speaker 2: whether it's real, whether it's prank. They just simply have

525
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 2: no idea until they make a connection to another one

526
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:27,320
Speaker 2: of their tenants who have moved out a little while ago,

527
00:28:27,480 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 2: a man named Conway Brown. And once that connection is

528
00:28:31,920 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 2: made everything kind of starts to piece together, and Conway

529
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 2: Brown is a really fascinating part of the story. But

530
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 2: he used to rent the house where these letters were found,

531
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 2: but he has moved on from there already. But once

532
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 2: that leak is made, there's a sense that this is

533
00:28:50,600 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 2: a real letter, that it could be something. Of course,

534
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 2: the people who find it had no idea who anybody

535
00:28:56,800 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 2: in the story is. They have no idea what Benzicatani is.

536
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 2: That not idea many of the names that I mentioned

537
00:29:01,720 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 2: in it. And so this is one of those kind

538
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 2: of bivotal moments that I think could have gone either way.

539
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 2: They could have taken the letters and said this is rubbish,

540
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:14,960
Speaker 2: thrown it in the bin, and carried on with their renovations,

541
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 2: and they didn't. They kind of passed them along to

542
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 2: a friend who had another friend because one of those

543
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 2: kind of passed the letter around. And so Let's found

544
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:27,520
Speaker 2: its way into the hands of a really interesting pair

545
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 2: of detectives. One of them was all Doc. That was

546
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 2: the one was called JB. And if you kind of

547
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:37,800
Speaker 2: picture a I don't know, like a biker's bar or pub,

548
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 2: you kind of get the scene of who these characters

549
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 2: are they're private investigators. They run around searching for adventure

550
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 2: and cass and they get hold of this and start

551
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 2: to kind of shake the tree. I think, probably motivated

552
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 2: by an adventure just a thrilling story. They want to

553
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 2: try and see where it leads them, and so they

554
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 2: start to kind of poke around and see what this

555
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 2: is all about. They get some local police officers on board.

556
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:07,880
Speaker 2: This is not a very different part of town, and

557
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 2: so things start to move a little bit. But at

558
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,680
Speaker 2: this stage they still have no idea whether this is real,

559
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 2: whether it's just a prank. The less it talks about

560
00:30:16,640 --> 00:30:19,360
Speaker 2: a shallow grave, they dig up the shadow grave and

561
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:22,600
Speaker 2: it's a thing there. So they kind of go through

562
00:30:22,640 --> 00:30:25,080
Speaker 2: this back and forth. Is this reel or is it fake?

563
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 2: Is it real? Is it fake? And eventually they get

564
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 2: their way through to Conway, who is one of these

565
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 2: really interesting characters. And I know this because I spent

566
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 2: many many hoursts seeing and interviewing him in jail, and

567
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 2: he is one of these really kind of interesting characters

568
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,280
Speaker 2: who kind of just it almost feels like his entire

569
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 2: life has been a stream that swept him along and

570
00:30:49,240 --> 00:30:52,479
Speaker 2: kind of bancing around from one thing to the next,

571
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 2: and he kind of gets discovered and just confex us

572
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 2: kind of amazing. He just starts to talk once he's cornered,

573
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 2: and you know, it's interesting because he kind of talks

574
00:31:05,800 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 2: about these black claus and his memories. Then he talks

575
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 2: about wanting to get one of these things off his chase.

576
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 2: But he's kind of the real first piece that comes

577
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 2: together for these detectives, and so they get him into

578
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 2: a room. Let's take his confession, and you know what,

579
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 2: it turns out that the lester is talking about a

580
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 2: real case. Conway starts to help them put some of

581
00:31:29,920 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 2: the pieces together. He talks about who wrote the letter

582
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 2: and the fact that they are not dead, even though

583
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 2: they say, if you're really mister and I'm there, we'll

584
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 2: get to all of that just now. He tells them

585
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:46,800
Speaker 2: art the fact that two police officers were involved in

586
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 2: the crime. He talks about his other friends, and crucially,

587
00:31:50,880 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 2: he talks about what happened to Bensicittani. He describes in

588
00:31:56,120 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 2: a very dramatic way how first she was in essentially

589
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:05,280
Speaker 2: brought to this very dark kind of spot outside of

590
00:32:05,360 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 2: the main city and then stabbed. He talks about how

591
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 2: she survived that attack and was discovered in the hospital

592
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:16,760
Speaker 2: a little while later recovering, and then this brazen operation

593
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 2: with the assistance of the police officers to go and

594
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 2: kidnap her a second time from hospital to if you like,

595
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 2: finish the job. He talked about how she had then

596
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 2: been left to die inside this bus on a farm

597
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 2: kind of a host there outside of the city again

598
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 2: and eventually buried in a shallow grave. And a shallow

599
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 2: grave that keeps getting mentioned, of course, is at the

600
00:32:39,920 --> 00:32:44,640
Speaker 2: very house where the letter was discovered. It's behind the garage,

601
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 2: so behind where you would park a car. The side

602
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 2: of the shallow grave is right there, and he kind

603
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 2: of really helps the police piece all of this together

604
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 2: and the domino starts to fall.

605
00:32:56,840 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 1: So Eric, the private investigators, and Betty are at the restaurant.

606
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: Is there anybody else any other restaurant workers there?

607
00:33:04,960 --> 00:33:08,480
Speaker 2: So it's impossible to tell. We don't know exactly what

608
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 2: transpired there. What we do know is that, according to

609
00:33:13,080 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 2: to Conway Brown, is that Bessie Kattani was interrogated, then stabbed,

610
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 2: then kidnapped again from hospital and left to die eventually.

611
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 2: So there's kind of a lot that happens around it.

612
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 2: But you know, there isn't this one moment, There isn't

613
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 2: this one evening where this all unfold. The real story, actually,

614
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 2: the story that I try and tell in the book,

615
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:42,360
Speaker 2: is actually of how the investigation managed to bring together

616
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:45,880
Speaker 2: the circumstantial evidence that we do have, because there was

617
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 2: never a smoking gun. You know, nobody burst into the courtroom.

618
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 2: It was rather this amazing case where you had all

619
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 2: of the circumstantial evidence coming together, and then the course

620
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 2: trying to make sense of all of that back it

621
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 2: up a little bit. Let me just say that once

622
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 2: Conway Brown was detained, arrested and questioned and confessed, there

623
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 2: were essentially six men who then were arrested for this crime.

624
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 2: So the first and the most important, I would argue,

625
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:21,759
Speaker 2: is probably a man called Carrington laws He was a

626
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,759
Speaker 2: private investigator who, at least according to the trial and

627
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 2: the evidence that emerged, was accused of being the kind

628
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 2: of masterminded at all. He was also the author of

629
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 2: the confessional letter which was proved to the trial itself.

630
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 2: There was also Conway Brown, who was somebody who get

631
00:34:40,120 --> 00:34:43,920
Speaker 2: befriended and who worked for Carrington Lawson. They were the

632
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 2: two brothers, both police officers called the Ranger brothers. That

633
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:52,399
Speaker 2: was their surname. And then two out of figures, one

634
00:34:52,520 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 2: named Dirk and one named four. So essentially there were

635
00:34:56,320 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 2: six men who were eventually arrested for this crime on

636
00:35:00,440 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 2: a letter that came out under the carpet. They immediately

637
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:07,680
Speaker 2: went to war against each other, and so Conway Brown

638
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 2: turned state witness. So did them do? So three of

639
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 2: them immediately rolled over and said we're going to cooperate

640
00:35:17,600 --> 00:35:21,960
Speaker 2: with the prosecutors. Caringson Lawson and the two police officers,

641
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 2: the Ranger brothers stood firm and did not compare to

642
00:35:26,440 --> 00:35:31,800
Speaker 2: anything and decided to stand trial for that particular case, accused,

643
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:36,120
Speaker 2: of course of kidnapping and murdering DESICATII. Something else happened

644
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:40,280
Speaker 2: at the same time, which is that the station level

645
00:35:40,480 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 2: police officers escalated the case up to a higher level

646
00:35:45,080 --> 00:35:47,839
Speaker 2: of the police and the prosecutors, if you like. In

647
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 2: South Africa, so if you imagine, there are detectives that

648
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 2: work at police station level, and then there are always

649
00:35:54,160 --> 00:35:56,880
Speaker 2: that work at the provincial level or the national level,

650
00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 2: and so this case got bumped up the ranks, if

651
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:03,920
Speaker 2: you like, again because of some connections between the investigators

652
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 2: and some more senior investigators, and so very quickly you

653
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:12,000
Speaker 2: were in a situation where a provincial protective took over

654
00:36:12,080 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 2: the case, a man named Harold Van Bate, who was

655
00:36:16,040 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 2: a really seasoned detective who had investigated some really big

656
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:24,200
Speaker 2: crimes in the years that he'd been busy on it.

657
00:36:25,000 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 2: And the prosecution was very quickly taken on by a

658
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 2: man named Helman Brewdray, who was a senior council. I

659
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,160
Speaker 2: don't know what the American equivalence is, but here in

660
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:37,480
Speaker 2: the UK it would be a sault somebody who's kind

661
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:40,960
Speaker 2: of at the top of the legal ladder, if you like.

662
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 2: And so very quickly this case started to become more

663
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 2: high profile, more interesting. I was reporting on the radio,

664
00:36:50,000 --> 00:36:52,960
Speaker 2: so it started to the snowballs started to are supposed

665
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 2: to go in terms of how it was being investigated.

666
00:36:57,400 --> 00:36:59,919
Speaker 2: When I started reporting on this, the arrested a really

667
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:04,320
Speaker 2: made and that escalation to the senior prosecutors that happened,

668
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:06,959
Speaker 2: and so there was a now for the first time,

669
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:11,319
Speaker 2: a real investigation bolding. So this wasn't now just kind

670
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 2: of routine little interviews and so on. This was a

671
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 2: proper effort to try and get to what actually happened.

672
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:19,680
Speaker 1: Thirteen years later, exactly right.

673
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:24,160
Speaker 2: And the really interesting part also is that havent Bordering.

674
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:29,920
Speaker 2: I mean, if he passed away sadly during the COVID years,

675
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 2: but if you imagine a giant, a man he was

676
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 2: in africaner and white South African who had worked in

677
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 2: the prosecution service for a really long time and had

678
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 2: also been involved in prosecuting a Party era crimes. So

679
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:45,880
Speaker 2: in other words, he would have been somebody who was

680
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:48,759
Speaker 2: sending he was sending people to the gallows who were

681
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,799
Speaker 2: posing a party. If you can imagine that he'd come

682
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:54,920
Speaker 2: from a family of police officers and so on, and

683
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 2: so here he was trying to get justice for this

684
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:00,400
Speaker 2: black woman who had come from the provinces and they

685
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 2: had been murdered by these white men, and so it

686
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,600
Speaker 2: was this kind of really interesting dynamic. But he was

687
00:38:05,600 --> 00:38:08,959
Speaker 2: the lead prosecutor, kind of was the lead detective now,

688
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,160
Speaker 2: and things still moving, and they were trying to find

689
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 2: ways to basically build the case so that they could

690
00:38:14,560 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 2: take it to trial because they had these six men.

691
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 2: Three of them had confessed that you would never build

692
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 2: a case like that because well, people who fall out

693
00:38:23,120 --> 00:38:25,360
Speaker 2: tend to lie about each other. So you need more,

694
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:28,719
Speaker 2: you need more than that. And so they started to

695
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:33,800
Speaker 2: tackle this investigation from different directions. One of the ways

696
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:35,360
Speaker 2: that they were trying to solve it is through the

697
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 2: handwriting analysis, because the letter was hyped, but there was

698
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 2: enough on it in terms of side notes and signature

699
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:46,400
Speaker 2: that could give them a handwriting match.

700
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 1: There was a signature on this letter correct because he

701
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 1: thought he was going to be dead. I guess correct.

702
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 2: If you go along with what the courts found, then

703
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 2: this is somebody who's a seasoned investigator used to taking

704
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 2: and making statements. So it almost had the feel of

705
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 2: an affidavit of a police statement. If you like this

706
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 2: confession letter that began with if you're reading this, then

707
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:11,000
Speaker 2: I am dead. And so they started to try and

708
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:14,240
Speaker 2: match their handwriting, but there was a very small sample

709
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:18,120
Speaker 2: and it wasn't quite conclusive enough. And there was this

710
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 2: moment in an investigation where the main detective had this

711
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 2: wonderful idea to go into the prisons and essentially request

712
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:28,279
Speaker 2: all of the letters that parents and Lawton had been

713
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:32,040
Speaker 2: writing in jail, to request very random things like an

714
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 2: eye player or whatever for to listen to some music

715
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,600
Speaker 2: or to complain about something. And so they were then

716
00:39:38,680 --> 00:39:41,800
Speaker 2: able to do a proper handwriting analysis.

717
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:43,800
Speaker 1: Was he denying that he wrote this letter?

718
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 2: Oh, right from the beginning, So he was basically he

719
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:50,920
Speaker 2: was basically saying that he was being framed, particularly by

720
00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 2: Eric and also by kind of everybody else. But he

721
00:39:54,360 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 2: was basically and all the way through this case always

722
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 2: maintained that he was the big of somebody who was

723
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 2: trying to bring them and it was, you know, his

724
00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 2: line in court was, you know, I remember I was

725
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 2: in the court room the one day and we were

726
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:11,319
Speaker 2: talking and I kind of asked, you know, well, what's

727
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:14,799
Speaker 2: the strategy and carrying some laws and just simply said,

728
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:18,840
Speaker 2: you know, our strategy is simple, prove it. It was almost

729
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:21,400
Speaker 2: a challenge to the prosecutors to say, well, you know,

730
00:40:21,840 --> 00:40:25,800
Speaker 2: push this past that level where circumstantial evidence is heavy

731
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:28,239
Speaker 2: enough to actually secure a conviction. And I don't think

732
00:40:28,320 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 2: that carry Sym Lawson and his team ever imagined that

733
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:35,600
Speaker 2: that could happen. But so the handwriting was really really crucial,

734
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:39,279
Speaker 2: and they brought in some handwriting analysis and that was

735
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 2: part of the case, but it still wasn't enough. A

736
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:47,480
Speaker 2: major major part of this investigation was, well, if you

737
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:51,919
Speaker 2: say that basically Katina was killed, where's her body? Yeah,

738
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 2: you can't have a murder case without a body, because

739
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 2: what happens is between the two years time basic Katania

740
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,800
Speaker 2: arrived boats that she had taken to America like you said,

741
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 2: and goes bye, sorry about that, I'm back. So they

742
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 2: needed to prove that she had actually been killed, and

743
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 2: that was really really difficult because they went to the

744
00:41:11,000 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 2: shallow grave the letter. It was like a pirate matter.

745
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,320
Speaker 2: There was an x markster spot, but there was nothing

746
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:21,120
Speaker 2: buried there. And it's interesting because they kept digging it out.

747
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:23,839
Speaker 2: So there were several attempts at it and each time

748
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 2: there was just nothing. And eventually, once the police investigation

749
00:41:27,600 --> 00:41:30,239
Speaker 2: kind of escalated high enough, there were a couple of

750
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 2: forensic investigators that were brought in and they were really

751
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:37,919
Speaker 2: well connected and so they were able to reach out

752
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,919
Speaker 2: a little bit further and bring in a very specialized

753
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:45,760
Speaker 2: unit that investigates a pritt Era crimes across South Africa.

754
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:50,479
Speaker 2: So if you imagine anti apartheids campaigners or activists who

755
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 2: were taken outs and killed by the state police and

756
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 2: then disappeared, this unit went around and found their bodies

757
00:41:57,239 --> 00:42:00,480
Speaker 2: and tried to bring closer to the family. You remember,

758
00:42:00,520 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 2: we had the kind of the truth and reconciliation process

759
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:06,920
Speaker 2: in South Africa after a parties and so this unit

760
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 2: was really specialized in excavating graves, and so they came

761
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 2: in and I think this was the third or fourth

762
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 2: time they were digging up to spray desperately hoping to

763
00:42:16,719 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 2: find some evidence, and on this one final attempt they

764
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,920
Speaker 2: brought in this very specialized units. They set up kind

765
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:27,920
Speaker 2: of a sifting process to go through everything, and if

766
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 2: you can believe us, six tiny little bones washed up.

767
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:35,319
Speaker 2: So there was nobody There was no skeleton, but there

768
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:39,680
Speaker 2: were six tiny little feet bones that were discovered very quickly,

769
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 2: backed for evidence and captured by the police. But there

770
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 2: was another problem, right because well, what if it was

771
00:42:47,320 --> 00:42:49,719
Speaker 2: a bone that belonged to somebody else, what if it

772
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:52,359
Speaker 2: was an animal bone? What it? You know, there were

773
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 2: so many what ifs. The forensic labs in South Africa

774
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:59,200
Speaker 2: had to go tign to all DNA from these little bones.

775
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 2: But the tuble is they'd been in the ground for

776
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:06,080
Speaker 2: over a decade and they were tiny, and they weren't

777
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:08,400
Speaker 2: kind of the kind of bones that were really easy

778
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:11,800
Speaker 2: to work with. So the South African forensic services weren't

779
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 2: able to get DNA from them, which seemed like a

780
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 2: really big setback. But again I keep talking about the

781
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,759
Speaker 2: stars aligning. But through some connections and some previous work

782
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:25,439
Speaker 2: that South Africa had done, they were able to reach

783
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:31,440
Speaker 2: out to a forensic laboratory in Bosnia. And the reason

784
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:34,319
Speaker 2: that's interesting is because Bosnia of course had gone through

785
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 2: its own Balkan walls, and so the experts there were

786
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:43,760
Speaker 2: incredibly skilled at pulling DNA from incredibly decomposed and damaged

787
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 2: tiny pieces of bone. And so they went to the

788
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:52,399
Speaker 2: International Commission for Missing Persons and managed to find some

789
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 2: experts there who said, well, give us a crack, and

790
00:43:55,040 --> 00:43:58,120
Speaker 2: so these bones were then shipped off to Bosnia and

791
00:43:58,160 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 2: there they managed to get a hit and match the

792
00:44:01,239 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 2: DNA to Bensicatanese family. And I know that it's difficult

793
00:44:06,560 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 2: for a global audience to understand this, but for South

794
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 2: Africa to do that level of investigation, it's almost unheard of.

795
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:18,360
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a really huge effort to unbirth the truth,

796
00:44:18,480 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 2: to bring in forensic experts, to find international partners to

797
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 2: DHL samples across and then to invite those experts to

798
00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:32,520
Speaker 2: come and testify in a country. And it was incredible

799
00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 2: because Carryings and Lawson and the two brothers put up

800
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 2: as legal defense. Carrington was represented by one of the

801
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:43,839
Speaker 2: country's top lawyers, top criminal lawyers, who was really well

802
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:48,280
Speaker 2: known around the country. So they had an incredibly powerful

803
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 2: defense team. And they were grilling the handwriting and analysts.

804
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 2: They were grilling the people who turned against each other,

805
00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:02,760
Speaker 2: and they were grilling DNA experts who blew over from Bosnia.

806
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:06,600
Speaker 2: But there was an incredibly solid witness who blew over

807
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:10,239
Speaker 2: I think the same was Thomas Parsons, and he was

808
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 2: kind of this incredibly seasoned investigations that he had done

809
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:17,959
Speaker 2: a million different court cases. I think he was. He'd

810
00:45:18,000 --> 00:45:20,040
Speaker 2: been involved in a lot of the kind of international

811
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:23,720
Speaker 2: genocide cases and so on. And as he was being grilled,

812
00:45:23,760 --> 00:45:25,879
Speaker 2: there was this line, I'll never forget it. He said,

813
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 2: you know, to me, it doesn't really matter what happened

814
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 2: to this bone. It could have been picked up by

815
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,279
Speaker 2: a blackbird and dropped on my desk. She was trying

816
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,279
Speaker 2: to defend the kind of the chain of custody, said,

817
00:45:37,280 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 2: it doesn't really matter because the kind of test that

818
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 2: you do to call DNA out of these bones, you know,

819
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:46,920
Speaker 2: they simply don't lie. You can't plant DNA inside the bone.

820
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 2: And so that DNA evidence really really stuck, and it

821
00:45:51,280 --> 00:45:56,520
Speaker 2: gave the prosecution a body, It gave them handwriting analysis,

822
00:45:56,520 --> 00:45:58,840
Speaker 2: it gave them the testimony of those who had turned

823
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 2: state witness, and suddenly it's impossible. If you imagine a

824
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 2: kitchen with all of these ingredients scattered everywhere, Suddenly it

825
00:46:06,360 --> 00:46:09,839
Speaker 2: all came together into this one case. And in that

826
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 2: case took four years to work its way through the

827
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:15,719
Speaker 2: legal system in South Africa. Wow, but work its way

828
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 2: through the legal system it did. The lead investigator, which

829
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:20,960
Speaker 2: I told you about how Van Bake I think he

830
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:23,800
Speaker 2: was on the stand for about eight days and had

831
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:28,439
Speaker 2: a breakdown while he was testifying, got hostitialized, came back

832
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:31,799
Speaker 2: and finished the job. You know. The prosecutors that what

833
00:46:31,880 --> 00:46:34,759
Speaker 2: they could to present all of their evidence, and it

834
00:46:34,800 --> 00:46:37,320
Speaker 2: was an incredible, incredible case to follow.

835
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:42,200
Speaker 1: What do you think was the message that was being

836
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 1: telegraphed out to South Africa to have all of these

837
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 1: top prosecutors to have this investigation the DNA analysis. Why

838
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:54,120
Speaker 1: do this for you know, a woman, particularly a black

839
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 1: woman from not a very you know, a nice area.

840
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:02,120
Speaker 1: I mean, what really was the whole point was this political?

841
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:03,400
Speaker 1: What were they doing?

842
00:47:03,960 --> 00:47:05,400
Speaker 2: I don't think it was political.

843
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 3: I think that I mean, I genuinely believe that the

844
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 3: people who were involved in this case, kind of right

845
00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 3: down from the station level all the way up to

846
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:19,320
Speaker 3: the very top levels of prosecutors and police offers, I think.

847
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:22,400
Speaker 2: That they wanted to solve the case. I think they

848
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:25,759
Speaker 2: were genuinely drawn in by the mystery. I think it

849
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:28,640
Speaker 2: was one of those cases that does not come around Austin.

850
00:47:28,680 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 2: I think it's a once in a career case for

851
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:34,879
Speaker 2: many of these police officers and prosecutors and so on.

852
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:38,280
Speaker 2: And then I think as it went further and further along,

853
00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:41,239
Speaker 2: as it got to the High Court, as it was

854
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:43,920
Speaker 2: kind of challenged in the Supreme Court, as it was

855
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 2: appealed in the Constitutional Court, it kind of brought a

856
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:52,359
Speaker 2: different message, and that is this equality before the law. Right,

857
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:55,200
Speaker 2: It's this idea that you don't have to be rich,

858
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:59,080
Speaker 2: or white or powerful to get justice. It's an idea

859
00:47:59,200 --> 00:48:02,719
Speaker 2: that ratically at least you know, a justice system should

860
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 2: be blind, is to treat everybody the same. And so

861
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:09,040
Speaker 2: I think it definitely kind of carried that message. And

862
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 2: I'm looking at a copy of the book now and

863
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:13,480
Speaker 2: as a quote on it at the back by a

864
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 2: lady called tulimadon Sella who was the nation's public protector.

865
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:22,440
Speaker 2: She led an oversight units that was basically trying to

866
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:25,800
Speaker 2: keep anigh on the government and what it was spending.

867
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: We would say in America, a watchdog.

868
00:48:27,840 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 2: A watchdog, and she is an incredibly respected woman, Tulia

869
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:35,360
Speaker 2: modon Sella, and her quote is a relentless search for

870
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 2: truth and justice. Cold case compassion is a story that

871
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,400
Speaker 2: inspires confidence in the system and the firms that indeed

872
00:48:41,440 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 2: we are all equal before the law. And I think

873
00:48:45,360 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 2: that was an interesting aspect. And you asked me right

874
00:48:48,480 --> 00:48:50,440
Speaker 2: at the beginning about some of the major themes, and

875
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 2: that that was definitely one of them. I remember being

876
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 2: asked to write for a global policy magazine about what

877
00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:58,799
Speaker 2: is said about the South African justice system to the

878
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:02,600
Speaker 2: outside world. African justice system all often seems kind of

879
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:05,319
Speaker 2: like a wild wild West, so like a jungle and

880
00:49:05,680 --> 00:49:09,799
Speaker 2: corrupt and unfair and so on. But then at the

881
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 2: same time that this was happening, we had all these

882
00:49:12,239 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 2: other big cases. You probably wouldn't remember, but there was

883
00:49:14,680 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 2: the case of a man who had been extradited from

884
00:49:17,160 --> 00:49:20,080
Speaker 2: the UK to Central for killing his wife. This was

885
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:23,560
Speaker 2: the divine case there was to ask for the stories,

886
00:49:23,760 --> 00:49:26,480
Speaker 2: case that blew into town and also kind of showed

887
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:29,000
Speaker 2: the power of our That was another case that I

888
00:49:29,040 --> 00:49:32,359
Speaker 2: reported on too, so the Pastorias case and so on,

889
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:34,799
Speaker 2: and so I think at that particular time, the South

890
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 2: African justice system was being looked at by the world,

891
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:40,719
Speaker 2: and this was a story that told a very different tale,

892
00:49:41,320 --> 00:49:43,720
Speaker 2: a tale that if you get the right people together,

893
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:46,239
Speaker 2: if you put in the effort, if you overlook some

894
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 2: of the kind of the differences of the past and

895
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:51,279
Speaker 2: so on, if you don't just assume that cases and

896
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:55,120
Speaker 2: poor neighborhoods don't need to be investigated, you can altogether

897
00:49:55,360 --> 00:50:00,759
Speaker 2: these most incredible investigations and you can give closure to families.

898
00:50:01,280 --> 00:50:03,640
Speaker 2: And you know, I was there that on the day

899
00:50:03,840 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 2: that it all came together and there was a guilty

900
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:10,120
Speaker 2: verdict and character lawson was sentenced to thirty years in jail.

901
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,400
Speaker 2: The Ranger brothers were sent to jail, and I was

902
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,680
Speaker 2: there with when the family got that news. I was

903
00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 2: there when they made a trip up to Johannesburg from

904
00:50:20,239 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 2: the Eastern Cape. So essentially it's quite difficult to explain,

905
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 2: but it was a spiritual ceremony to try and bring

906
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 2: Betty Posiini spurred back home to the Eastern Cape. So

907
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:33,320
Speaker 2: they went to the grave site. Now with the bones

908
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:35,520
Speaker 2: having been discovered there they could put some of that

909
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:38,279
Speaker 2: earth into a coffin and bring her home. They went

910
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:40,920
Speaker 2: to the bus where she was left to die and

911
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 2: perform some ceremonies. If I paused for a second, I

912
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:46,520
Speaker 2: can kind of stop feel them in my rib cage.

913
00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 2: And then they took her coffin back home to the

914
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 2: Eastern Cape. They were able to bury her and essentially

915
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 2: to make peace with the ancestors. And that's that's a

916
00:50:56,239 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 2: hugely important thing. And I think that the story in

917
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:06,040
Speaker 2: many ways for that sale too, along with this incredible

918
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:09,200
Speaker 2: kind of a nice investigation and who had done it

919
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 2: and so on.

920
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:13,320
Speaker 1: So the folks, so I guess that was the Ranger

921
00:51:13,360 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 1: brothers and Conway Brown. Those are the folks who took

922
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:18,640
Speaker 1: plea deals. Is that what they did?

923
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 2: No, it's so confusing because there are so many characters.

924
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:24,400
Speaker 2: We have to actually publish a couple of pages to

925
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:28,720
Speaker 2: guide people through all the characters. Initially, so Conway Brown

926
00:51:29,239 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 2: was the kind of the first Domino that fell. Without him,

927
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:35,400
Speaker 2: nothing would have gone any further. If he had just

928
00:51:35,480 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 2: clammed up and kind of said, I'm not talking to you,

929
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:40,840
Speaker 2: there's a good chance that this would never have been solved.

930
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 2: But he spoilt everything else. And then Paul and Dirk

931
00:51:45,880 --> 00:51:49,320
Speaker 2: were also then the characters who took the plea bargains.

932
00:51:49,800 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 2: Charents in Lawton, who was the author of the confession,

933
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,680
Speaker 2: and the Ranger brothers stood firm and they didn't take

934
00:51:56,719 --> 00:51:59,160
Speaker 2: any plea bargains and they rolled the diets and said

935
00:51:59,200 --> 00:52:01,160
Speaker 2: we can see this and we believe that we're going

936
00:52:01,200 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 2: to get acquitted. But in the end, ultimately just to

937
00:52:05,239 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 2: me that remained to get sent to jail. They were

938
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:11,440
Speaker 2: convicted for it. Conway Bryan also spent time in jail,

939
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:13,879
Speaker 2: by the way, which is where him and I had

940
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:18,280
Speaker 2: many many interviews. And the Ranger brothers too had spent

941
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 2: time in jail. I think they'd been released. Paul and

942
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:24,880
Speaker 2: Dirk some deals, and so you kind of had different

943
00:52:24,960 --> 00:52:27,600
Speaker 2: characters turning on each other, but the author and the

944
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 2: two police brothers were the ones that wanted to see

945
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 2: the trial through.

946
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 1: Wow and Carrington never ever kind of after the conviction

947
00:52:36,360 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 1: or appeals. He never caught to writing that letter that

948
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:42,720
Speaker 1: ruined so many people, Thank goodness.

949
00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:45,959
Speaker 2: No, So I mean I had made a huge punts

950
00:52:45,960 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 2: of efforts to try and hear more of his story,

951
00:52:48,960 --> 00:52:52,520
Speaker 2: to interview him, to present it. I was fortunate in

952
00:52:52,560 --> 00:52:55,680
Speaker 2: the fact that he spent many days on the witness

953
00:52:55,680 --> 00:52:58,799
Speaker 2: stamp too, and so I am able to represent his

954
00:52:58,960 --> 00:53:02,279
Speaker 2: side of the story to a huge extent because it

955
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 2: was running through the course. But the reality on it

956
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:09,480
Speaker 2: is that you know, there are so many questions left

957
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 2: an answered here, and you know this is a story

958
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:17,200
Speaker 2: that spreads out than just Bosnia. It's actually I talk

959
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 2: about it in the book, but it's it's a case

960
00:53:19,400 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 2: and a story that takes place across five different countries.

961
00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:25,920
Speaker 2: So you have South Africa where it kind of all

962
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:29,279
Speaker 2: plays out. Then you have Bosnia that helped with the

963
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 2: actual DNA investigation. You have somebody who's in New Zealand

964
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,919
Speaker 2: who the lesson was actually addressed to, who's never come

965
00:53:38,040 --> 00:53:41,880
Speaker 2: forward and was never tracked down. There were a couple

966
00:53:41,880 --> 00:53:45,160
Speaker 2: of people in Australia that played its new role, including

967
00:53:45,200 --> 00:53:48,480
Speaker 2: the daughter of the restaurant who was never extradited. Although

968
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 2: there was a lot of talk about that, and there

969
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:53,920
Speaker 2: was even a UK link was one of carrying some

970
00:53:54,040 --> 00:53:56,919
Speaker 2: DX wives who also played a kind of a role

971
00:53:56,960 --> 00:54:00,760
Speaker 2: in the story but never came through. And the story

972
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:03,959
Speaker 2: kind of went across the globe. And there are many

973
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:06,839
Speaker 2: many pieces still missing there. And one of the ones

974
00:54:06,880 --> 00:54:10,800
Speaker 2: that I'm most fascinated by is, well, why did Conway

975
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:14,600
Speaker 2: not take that letter after hiding it? How could somebody

976
00:54:14,680 --> 00:54:19,040
Speaker 2: forget a letter that's important and then just move out

977
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:22,640
Speaker 2: of the rented home and leave it lying under the carpets.

978
00:54:23,160 --> 00:54:25,720
Speaker 2: I think I got close to some of the answers

979
00:54:25,760 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 2: through the interviews with him. I also feel like I

980
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:31,680
Speaker 2: got pretty close to why the letter would have been

981
00:54:31,680 --> 00:54:34,839
Speaker 2: written to begin with, because if you look at all

982
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:37,960
Speaker 2: of the inviting that was going on, I think probably

983
00:54:38,120 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 2: some more of an insurance policy in case something happened.

984
00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 2: So if you can picture the scene, you feel like

985
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 2: somebody like Eric or somebody else would be out to

986
00:54:47,719 --> 00:54:51,080
Speaker 2: get you. You are probably a little worried about it,

987
00:54:51,120 --> 00:54:53,000
Speaker 2: so you would write this letter, give it to a

988
00:54:53,080 --> 00:54:56,600
Speaker 2: friend who hide never imagine your friend would then just

989
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:59,520
Speaker 2: forget it under a carpet, and then the rest of

990
00:54:59,520 --> 00:55:02,760
Speaker 2: course this ste but you know all of that is explored. Obviously,

991
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:06,400
Speaker 2: it much creates a detail, and I know that you know,

992
00:55:06,520 --> 00:55:08,319
Speaker 2: talking about it now, it kind of feels a little

993
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 2: bit like a strobe light onto a really interesting story.

994
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:13,040
Speaker 2: But hopefully that gives you the thread. And as I said,

995
00:55:13,040 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 2: the beauty of that of the book is that it

996
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:18,840
Speaker 2: was written very naturally along the process of the trial,

997
00:55:19,239 --> 00:55:22,240
Speaker 2: and so it kind of lays it out very chronologically

998
00:55:22,560 --> 00:55:25,319
Speaker 2: and gives you that lovely merriage of building up of

999
00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:28,600
Speaker 2: course to the end, will those who who are responsible

1000
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 2: for essentially get justice.

1001
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:44,440
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

1002
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:47,520
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Sinners, All About the

1003
00:55:47,560 --> 00:55:50,719
Speaker 1: Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock, and

1004
00:55:50,800 --> 00:55:54,080
Speaker 1: Don't forget There are twelve seasons of my historical true

1005
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:58,560
Speaker 1: crime podcast Tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,

1006
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:01,560
Speaker 1: scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.

1007
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:05,480
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer

1008
00:56:05,600 --> 00:56:10,440
Speaker 1: is Alexis Amerosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This

1009
00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:14,640
Speaker 1: episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer.

1010
00:56:14,960 --> 00:56:20,040
Speaker 1: Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff,

1011
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:23,960
Speaker 1: and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram and Facebook

1012
00:56:24,040 --> 00:56:27,600
Speaker 1: at tenfold more Wicked and on Twitter at tenfold more.

1013
00:56:27,880 --> 00:56:29,759
Speaker 1: And if you know of a historical crime that could

1014
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:32,640
Speaker 1: use some attention from the crew at tenfold more Wicked,

1015
00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:37,239
Speaker 1: email us at info at tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also

1016
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 1: take your suggestions for true crime authors for Wicked Words