The man arrested in connection with the murder of a couple in their seventies at their farm outside Plettenberg Bay last week has been identified as Christiaan Branders.
Dr Jane Luck and her husband, Rolf, were found brutally killed at their farmhouse in the Crags on Thursday night.
Branders made his first court appearance at the Uniondale Magistrate Court on Monday.
Branders, 34, was allegedly spotted driving the couple’s Mercedes-Benz at high speed along the R339 towards Uniondale that night, after being captured by a licence plate recognition camera.
The vehicle was later flagged on a local security WhatsApp group.
Police responded to the registered address linked to the car, where they discovered the bodies, and launched a manhunt for the vehicle.
The car was later found overturned near Uniondale, and Branders allegedly fled on foot, covered in blood, but was apprehended shortly afterwards.
Police spokesperson Warrant Officer Chris Spies said Branders appeared on charges of possession of suspected stolen property as well as possession of drugs.
A small quantity of drugs was allegedly found during the initial arrest, hence the drug charge.
The case was postponed to April 20 for further investigation, and Branders was remanded in custody.
He is also expected to appear in the Plettenberg Bay Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday for the double murder.
“Investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of the couple is still underway,” Spies said.
“More charges could be added as the investigation unfolds.”
National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said the cases would be joined.
Jane and Rolf were 71 and 77 years old respectively.
The Luck couple’s daughter, Charlotte, previously told IOL she was in Knysna at the time of the grim discovery.
She said she was caring for her other son who was sick in a hostel, blissfully unaware that her parents’ badly beaten bodies had already been found.
Her youngest son, six-year-old Leo, was still waiting for his grandmother to pick him up.
“I was with my other son taking care of him, taking him to doctors,” she said.
“I kept calling our neighbours, saying please go and check on my parents.
“They haven’t fetched Leo from his friend from soccer, and it’s not like them.”
She raced back the moment she was told what had happened.
“I arrived shortly after that. I was racing to try and get home and find out what was happening.”
What she found when she got there was something she said she will never be able to forget.
“It was an absolute bloodbath,” she said.
“All I can say is it was a massacre. I don’t want to describe any of the injuries. It’s too violent.”
Charlotte said the family has been trying to come to terms with what had happened.
She and her brother Joseph are the only two of the couple’s children still alive, after their sister died when she was just eight years old.
Jane was a psychologist and art therapist who spent her career helping people work through their darkest moments.
She ran the local Al-Anon support group, helped clear alien vegetation from the farm, and kept paths open down to the river so her grandchildren could run to Whisky Creek to swim and fish.
Rolf was a geophysicist, an academic, well-read, and by his daughter’s account, one of the most intelligent people she has ever known.
“I just want to remember them laughing,” Charlotte said.
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