I Pray She Didn't Suffer

When gravely ill Debbie disappeared her friends were beside themselves with worry – then a body was found and two people she’d trusted were arrested

- Jana Van Der Merwe

Her friends were totally mystified. It just made no sense that she could vanish without a trace.

Even if Debbie Venter had wanted to, how could she? In the throes of stage four cancer, she weighed just 42kg and was fragile and weak. To those who knew her it seemed inconceivable that someone so frail would just get up and drive away in her car without saying a word to anyone.

Besides, Debbie (52) from Benoni, east of Johannesburg, who was diagnosed with cervical cancer last year, had made it clear that even though her condition was terminal she intended making the best of a lousy situation – and for her, this meant spending time with loved ones.

Debbie was a salesperson for a paving company, but by March she was no longer able to work due to her declining health.

Single and childless, and finding it hard to cope physically, she desperately pleaded on Facebook for someone to take her in. It was a huge relief when her half-sister, Danieta van Rhyn (39), reached out to her just before lockdown began, and offered her the chance to move in with her and her husband, Gert (39), in Bronkhorstspruit near Pretoria.

In social media posts and messages after the move, Debbie seemed happy, so friends were puzzled when two months later news broke that she was missing. What could have happened?

Two weeks dragged by without any sign of her. Then firefighters battling a veld fire in Lindopark in eastern Pretoria made a grizzly discovery. They found Debbie’s burnt body in a narrow stormwater drain.