Mystery surrounds whereabouts of Norwegian student missing after beach walk

HAUNTING CCTV footage of a Norwegian student walking alone in failing light towards a Sedgefield beach, never to be seen again, forms part of an investigation that is unfolding like a gripping piece of Nordic crime noir.

“I’ve seen the footage which is part of the docket,” says police spokesperson Captain Malcolm Pojie. “It shows Marie Ostbo leaving the PiliPili restaurant where she was having supper with her tour group at 6.15pm (last Wednesday). She’s by herself, walking towards Myoli beach dune with the sea about 130m away.

“You can see the weather is bad because in the footage the tops of the trees are swinging in the wind. So why she did that we don’t know. But what we do know is that was the last sight of Marie Ostbo alive.”

The 21- year- old was on a six- day Garden Route tour, overnighting at a backpackers, when she went missing.

The only clues that she reached the beach were her shoes and cellphone lying neatly on the windswept sand, discovered by the frantic search party launched soon after her friend and the tour leader realised she was missing.

The tour group boss would not divulge the name of Marie’s friend or his tour leader.

The only other evidence that police found was a cap that had been sent to Cape Town with Ostbo’s phone and shoes for forensic analysis, said Pojie.

“After a meeting with Knysna detectives on Thursday it was decided to scale down the massive air, sea and land search, which involved K-9 unit tracker dogs, after it yielded no results,” said Pojie.

“After following up all leads, the decision was to open a missing person’s docket. This is because there are no signs whatsoever of a crime taking place. There is absolutely no foul play suspected.”

Ostbo’s family, however, are not convinced. Responding only by WhatsApp, Marie’s dad Atle, who was in daily social media contact with his daughter, refused to comment on the scaling down of the police investigation. Nor would he comment on the CCTV footage.

But he appeared to believe she had been abducted. “I live in the hope that Marie will be found alive and brought in security home to us. As long as there is hope there is life.”

Atle said Marie was due to return on Wednesday to com- plete her studies at the Institute for Political Studies in Toulouse, France, and then her Stavanger home in early June.

Family concerns were more clearly voiced by a friend who e-mailed a Knysna newspaper.

“Please tell me why the police have not yet traced down and interviewed the two men who was observed by the video camera by the beach when this girl disappeared?”

(They were questioned and cleared, confirmed Pojie.)

“How can SA authorities solely pursue the drowning theory,” added the friend, echoing stories in the Norwegian press. “Why is it not regarded as a possible criminal act, when those who know Marie never thought she would act carelessly at the beach?”

Adding to the mystery is the tour group operator’s narrative which contrasts with the police version. “Marie went for a beach walk with the tour group,” he said, clearly devastated by the only tragedy to befall his Garden Route tour in 13 years of weekly operation.

“Fourteen minutes later her friend noticed Marie had not returned with the rest of the group for supper.

“She sounded the alarm and a search was launched.”

His timeline – the friend’s call to Marie at 6.44pm, NSRI alerted 7.10pm – not only jars with the police timeline but the NSRI, which states in a press release, that its search was activated at 7.40pm.

Last word in the puzzle goes to a backpacker’s staff member heeding Occam’s Razor principle that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

“She walked to the beach, decided to go for a paddle and got swept away the strong rip current,” he said, noting they had been prevalent after storms earlier in the week.

Marie Ostbo