Brother of Mauritius accused speaks
The brother of Marietjie Vosloo, who’s awaiting trial in Mauritius after allegedly killing her stepdaughter, tells of her jail ordeal and his hopes for her future
SHE’S not the monster stepmom people make her out to be. The person he knows would never have deliberately hurt her stepdaughter and she certainly wouldn’t have tried to kill her. Jan Jacobs desperately wants people to know this about his sister, Marietjie Vosloo.
Marietjie is the South African woman who’s on trial in Mauritius after the death of her stepdaughter, Mundolene.
The 34-year-old was arrested soon after allegedly fatally striking Mundolene (then 17) in October 2015 at the luxurious Hotel Riu Creole.
The teenager suffered a stroke and bleeding on the brain after being struck and was declared dead soon afterwards.
Instead of being on a dream family holiday, Marietjie found herself in a foreign jail while her grief-stricken husband, Mike Vosloo (46), and his two sons flew back to South Africa.
“If that happened to me, I don’t think I’d have made it,” Marietjie’s brother Jan Jacobs (43) says when we speak to him shortly after New Year’s Day at his home in Springs.
He was deeply shocked when he heard what had happened. “Marietjie would never do something like that on purpose.”
His sister told him what had happened that day when she called him from the holding cells. Marietjie and Mundolene had argued. “She says she [Marietjie] ran towards Mundolene and punched her hard. She turned around and walked to the room.
“Then she heard Mundolene had died. Marietjie was terribly shocked. She told me she’d never forgive herself.”
Jan is a man of few words. The right side of his face droops slightly. He suffered a stroke about a month ago and when he told Marietjie about it she was full of concern for him.
Jan and their brother, Bertie (37), are Marietjie’s only surviving relatives. The brothers take turns to speak to her on the phone about twice a month, and then only for five to 10 minutes at a time.
The rest of her calls – she’s permitted two a week – she uses to talk to her young son or her now estranged husband, Mike, who still mourns the death of his beloved daughter.
“Marietjie will never tell us how she’s really doing,” Jan says.
“I think things are much worse for her than we know. I think she wants to keep us calm. She says everything’s okay, but in reality it’s bad.”
THEIR childhood was anything but idyllic, Jan says. They grew up in a modest home in the farming town of Coligny in North West and Marietjie was the youngest of five children. From early childhood her life was scarred by loss. Her father, Bertus, a carpenter, died of a heart attack when she was three, and almost two years later her eldest brother, Pierre (19), was killed in a car accident.
She lost her mom and sister within three years of each other. Her mom, Maria, died of stomach cancer at the age of 59 and her sister, Marlyn (46), died after an asthma attack.
Marietjie lived with Marlyn during her high school years, matriculating from Hugenote High in Springs, Gauteng.
She was a 22-year-old pharmacy assistant when she met Mike, at the time the father of a young girl and boy, in Springs.
Marietjie later became pregnant and gave birth to their son, who’s now 12.
“Mike is a good man and father to his children,” Jan says. But for Marietjie this instant family was quite an adjustment. Mundolene was just six at the time but from the get-go she and her stepmom didn’t get along.
“Mundolene and Marietjie clashed,” says Jan with a faint stutter, his right eye tearing up. They were like chalk and cheese, and argued “all the time, about the smallest things”.
On the other hand Marietjie and her stepson (15) – Mundolene’s brother and Mike’s son from a previous marriage – never had issues, he says.
A few years into their marriage Mike and Marietjie moved to Margate in KwaZulu-Natal and Mike started working overseas in the mining industry.
“He built a good life for the family,” Jan says. “During school holidays Mundolene would visit them in Margate. She later moved in with them because she and her mom were having difficulties.”
Two days before Mike, Marietjie and their son were due to depart for Mauritius, Jan got a call from Marietjie. She was upset: Mike had arranged for Mundolene and her brother to join them on the holiday.
“Marietjie was distressed because she knew she and Mundolene wouldn’t get along. The previous December holiday [in Sun City] they’d had a massive row.”
Little did anyone realise that by the end of the first evening of the Vosloos’ supposed island idyll Mundolene would be dead and Marietjie would be behind bars.
JAN and Bertie try to send Marietjie necessities from time to time. “They steal her bras in prison,” Jan says. “That’s the only thing she’s asked for – for us to send bras.” When she entered the women’s jail Marietjie was allegedly assaulted by the other prisoners. Although Jan says this is now better, life is brutal in prison.
His sister lives on peanut butter sandwiches, has back problems and has developed an abscess in a tooth.
“She’s just living for the day she can see her child and family again,” Jan says.
Marietjie passes the time by reading (a charity organisation donates the books) and doesn’t interact with the other women much. Jan sends her religious books, crossword and Sudoku puzzles, and colouring books for adults.
She knows there’s no money for him to visit her, Jan says. “My only wish is to be able to see her again.”
He knows his sister misses her 12-yearold son more than anything, and the boy misses her too. Long before the tragedy she’d tattooed his name on the inside of her arm. He lives mostly with his dad now.
Marietjie’s trial is expected to resume on 31 January and she faces an uncertain future.
Jan says he’s known from the start that his sister’s case would take time. “It’s not a simple matter. It’s big. Their laws don’t work the same as ours.”
Marietjie was initially charged with murder but after a drawn-out investigation the charge, under Mauritian law, has been changed to assault without intent to kill (equivalent to involuntary manslaughter in South Africa).
But a prison term is still a possibility, her legal counsel, Zaredhin Jaunbaccus, told YOU.
Jan remains strong throughout the interview but by the end he’s visibly emotionally drained.
“She lives to see her child again,” he says. “When she gets out she just wants to carry on with her life. She’s not afraid. She’s looking forward to it. Prison has given her a lot of time to think.”
He says Marietjie is looking forward to having a braai when she gets home. “She doesn’t get much meat where she is now. Her greatest wish is to use a proper bathroom again with a toilet and a bath.”
He can no longer hold back the tears. “I just want to support her. If only I could hug her and tell her myself that I miss her. When she gets out I’ll be a better brother to her. We’ll spend more time together as family.
“I’ve told her she can live with me for a while. She’s hopeful that this year she’ll be spending Christmas at home.”
‘She’s just living for the day she can see her child and family again’