They Were The Perfect Couple'

A romantic getaway weekend ended in tragedy when a young couple died in the shower of their guest-farm cottage By Jana Van Der Merwe

- Jana Van Der Merwe

It was supposed to be the ideal weekend – a getaway in a stone cottage on a farm in the middle of nowhere.

The setting was idyllic: right on the banks of the Kouga River in the Eastern Cape with mountains looming in the distance. The bathroom of the cottage had a glass roof so at night you showered under a sky studded with a thousand stars.

The cottage is set on a self-catering guest farm near Kareedouw which has been closed to the public for weeks as a result of the national lockdown.

But Jéan Vosloo’s close friend Stephan du Plessis knew the owner and organized a weekend’s stay for himself, Jéan and Jéan’s fiancée, Mari Hoon, at the end of April.

The three friends had cabin fever and were looking forward to a change of scenery. They knew they were breaking lockdown rules so they stuck to gravel roads and made sure they didn’t interact with anyone else.

Little did Jéan (25) and Mari (28) know they were driving to their death. Stephan (25) found them lifeless in the shower the day after they arrived – as inseparable in death as they had been in life.

Their loved ones have been left reeling, scrambling for answers. The only consolation, perhaps, is that they died together – the one would never have been able to live life without the other.

Suné, Mari’s older sister, says Mari and Jéan met when they were students living in Stellenbosch, became engaged two years later and were planning a big family wedding in March next year.

“I think Mari knew from the start that Jéan was the man she wanted to marry,” Suné says.