A shallow grave, covered by only a light sprinkling of sand - this was the final resting place of Professor Louis Heyns.
|||Cape Town - A shallow pit in a dune, covered by only a light sprinkling of sand - this was the final resting place of Stellenbosch University’s Professor Louis Heyns, whose body was found on Thursday.
For a week, Johannes Hendricks, a cleaning supervisor for the City of Cape Town, worked with his team at a toilet block just metres away from where the Heyns’s body lay on the primary dune which lines Strand Beachfront, between the beach and Beach Road.
The dune is covered by a tangled forest of protected milkwood trees, criss-crossed by narrow, sandy paths.
Some of these paths lead to little clearings, sprinkled with litter.
And one of these paths leads from the public toilets to where Heyns’s body was found. Freshly dug sand surrounded the shallow pit - distinct against the wet, undisturbed parts of the dunes.
“We work here every day. We open the toilets at 7.30am, and work here until 4pm. We could not have known that he was lying here - so close to us - all this time. It’s shocking,” Hendricks told the Cape Argus.
Heyns, a paediatrician and lecturer at Stellenbosch University’s medicine faculty, was last seen on May 22 at 8.30pm.
He had left for his home in Welgelegen after visiting his brother in Somerset West.
The lead detective in the case was Warrant Officer Hannes Niemand, from Somerset West. Sources said Niemand and his team “did not sleep for a week” while investigating the case.
Police spokesman FC van Wyk said: “Police officers worked around the clock and managed to trace the dark grey Peugeot vehicle belonging to Dr Heyns to a chop-shop in Malmesbury. Three suspects from Malmesbury, aged 32, 37 and 43, were arrested last night.
“(Heyns’s) body was found in a shallow grave next to the Put-Put course in Strand Beach Road, after being pointed out by one of the suspects. A murder docket was opened and the investigation continues. The suspects will appear in the Somerset West Magistrate’s Court soon.”
Heyns’s wife of 33 years, Dalene Heyns, said last week that when he hadn’t arrived home by midnight, she sent him an SMS.
Dalene said when she and relatives found out he had left Somerset West more than four hours previously, they had reported him missing to police.
City worker Hendricks described the area as “dangerous”.
The City of Cape Town has launched a number of safety campaigns in the area, including deploying Metro Police to patrol the area because of its notoriety.
Police have not yet disclosed how or why Heyns’s body was taken to this notorious site, or where he may have been hijacked, or whether hijacking was the suspects’ alleged motive.
At publication time today, Heyns’s family had only just been informed of the gruesome discovery.
Cape Argus