Shantèl Zeelie’s mom seeks answers
Nine years after Shantèl’s murder, her ex-boyfriend is in the dock and her devastated mother and sister hope they’ll finally find out what happened the night she died
WITHOUT glancing up once she walks past the lookout points where tourists flock to admire the scenery that surrounds the spectacular Knysna Heads. Elsie Zeelie (63) has her gazed fixed on the path she’s walked again and again over the past nine years. She stops, pointing to a gap forced open between the trees to reveal a narrow, muddy track.
“We have to go down here,” she says, crouching under the branches. She pushes ahead until she finally stops again and points towards a forested area.
“That’s where they found my daughter’s body,” she says, her voice flat. “She’d been strangled and was in a sitting position. She was covered with branches and leaves so she couldn’t be seen from the path.”
For nine years Elsie had to face every day knowing her daughter Shantèl’s killer could still be roaming her town.
But now she finally has a measure of comfort. Her daughter’s boyfriend, Eugene Stander (34), is on trial after being charged with her January 2009 murder for a second time.
In 2011 the case against him was dropped due to lack of evidence but Elsie refused to give up, hounding the authorities to keep investigating – and she’s hoping this time justice will be served.
“After so many years of not knowing who killed your daughter and exactly what happened, it’s a relief to finally have it out in court,” Elsie says.
Sadly she’s suffering through the harrowing testimony without her husband, Danie. He died suddenly aged 64 in June last year after suffering a brain aneurysm – just a month before the national prosecuting authority (NPA) told Elsie that Eugene had been charged with their daughter’s murder again.
Before we walk back to the car, Elsie takes a last look at the forest. She’s been here too often to still feel emotional, she says.
“My whole world turned dark when she was murdered. Nothing will ever be the same again.”
IN A coffee shop in Knysna, Elsie relives the events that changed her life forever. Shantèl, the middle of her three daughters, lived with her parents in the pretty Garden Route town and worked as a receptionist at a local broker.
“The day she disappeared I told her she should be careful when she stays out late at night. She loved going dancing,” Elsie says.
“She just laughed and said I shouldn’t be so pessimistic. She said goodbye and drove off to work – and that was the last conversation I had with her.”
Later that day, one of Shantèl’s friends phoned Elsie to say her daughter’s cellphone was off and they couldn’t get hold of her.
She should’ve reported to a local restaurant for a waitressing shift that night but didn’t arrive.
When she hadn’t returned home by 11.30pm her parents started to worry.
After a sleepless night and several desperate phone calls to friends Danie jumped into his car early the next morning to look for her.
“Few people believe this, but when he stopped at a set of traffic lights, a voice inside him told him to turn off towards the Heads. And when he got to the parking lot, Shantèl’s car was there.”
The police were called in and after an extensive search Shantèl’s body was found near Coney Glen viewpoint late that afternoon.
That evening police told the young woman’s parents she seemed to have been strangled from behind with something like a piece of wood or tree stump.
The post-mortem later confirmed this.
“After her murder the world stopped for Danie and me,” Elsie says.
“When you wake up in the morning, you think about Shantèl. You go to sleep thinking of her last anxious moments, how she must have felt and what was going through her head.
“I’ve had so many sleepless nights trying to piece together the puzzle.”
Two years after the murder the police arrested Eugene for the first time. Shantèl had been engaged to Eugene’s cousin but after they broke off their engagement she and Eugene dated for about two years.
Shortly before she died Eugene ended their relationship – which Shantèl had difficulty coming to terms with, Elsie says.
She and Danie were shocked when Eugene was arrested.
“We socialised regularly with him and his parents,” Elsie says.
“Of course we thought the police had made a mistake. Eugene had celebrated Christmas with us – we thought he was a really decent guy.”
After just one court hearing Eugene was released on bail and the case was then thrown out due to lack of evidence. Elsie and Danie were left searching for answers once more. “I’d often find Danie sitting in the lounge looking at Shantèl’s baby pictures and crying. They were very close,” Elsie recalls, wiping her eyes.
“Danie always prayed he’d die only after Shantèl’s killer has been found.”
Determined to get justice for her daughter, Elsie started writing letters to the NPA imploring them to track down Shantèl’s killer. She’d been doing this for four years when she finally heard the police had a suspect: Eugene. Again.
THE trial has held the seaside town spellbound. Eugene, now married and with an eight-year-old son, is in the dock day after day at the Knysna magistrate court, watching as experts and Shantèl’s friends take the stand to paint a picture of what may have happened to the bubbly young woman that night.
Dr Servaas de Kock testified that when he examined Eugene three days after Shantèl’s murder, he had marks on his arms that would be expected on someone who’d recently passed through bushy terrain and tree branches.
Shantèl’s colleague Jacomina Farnham testified that Shantèl had told her on the day she went missing she’d be meeting someone at Knysna Heads during her lunch break.
Jacomina also testified that Shantèl had wanted to blackmail Eugene, who was working as a car mechanic at the time, because he’d apparently forged a trade certificate bearing his name.
According to Jacomina, Shantèl was still in love with Eugene and wanted to use the information to get back at him LEFT: Melissa at the wooden cross that’s been placed where the body of her sister, Shantèl (BELOW), was found. FAR LEFT: The footpath leading to the spot. INSET: Eugene Stander, her ex-boyfriend, stands accused of the murder. for leaving her.
Mariska Frans en , another friend of Shantèl’s, described how Shantèl planned to blackmail Eugene for R20 000, but actually wanted him back.
On 5 January 2009 she sent Mariska an SMS telling her she was meeting Eugene at lunchtime to get the money from him. Shantèl’s last SMS to her was, “He’s here now.”
MTN’s Dharmesh Kanti testified the company had picked up Eugene’s cellphone signal at Knysna Heads on the day of the murder.
In his statement to the police, Eugene denied he and Shantèl had met on that day. Danine Klue, his girlfriend at the time, said he had visited her on the night of 5 January 2009 as he did most nights, from about 6.30pm to 10pm.
It was a normal evening, she said, and she didn’t notice anything strange about Eugene. She hadn’t even known the two were in touch, she added.
Elsie is hoping the trial will bring some closure to the family.
For the first five years after her daughter’s death, she walked the 2km from her home to the cemetery every day to spend time at her grave.
“It was all part of my grieving process, I suppose,” Elsie says.
“I think about her murder every single day. I sit in her bedroom or in the bath, still crying.
“I don’t want to think about what will happen if no one is convicted, because then [we’ll] be starting all over again,” she says.
“How do you carry on living with so many questions?” S
SThe trial is scheduled to resume on 26 March.