A ruthless kidnapping group killed a British couple, put them in their sleeping bags, and fed them to crocodiles, a court heard.
Botanists Rod Saunders, 74, and Rachel, 63, were attacked while looking for rare seeds in a South African nature reserve.
The two risk-takers spent six months of every year searching mountains and forests for wild flower seeds to sell through their successful mail-order business.
In February 2018, they drove 900 miles from their home in Cape Town to meet a BBC crew in the Drakensberg Mountains in Kwa-Zulu Natal. There, they were filmed looking for rare gladioli.
A selfie with Nick Bailey, who hosted Gardeners’ World, and another picture taken by producer Robin Matthews are thought to be the last pictures of them alive.
After filming, expert gardener Rod and his wife of 30 years, microbiologist Rachel, went camping at a dam near a remote forest.
While this was going on, the police started a full-scale search and found that money had been taken out of their account. The court heard that they thought ISIS terrorists had taken the couple hostage.
It is said that the elite Hawks organized crime unit linked Rod and Rachel’s phones to local suspects who had sent each other extremist messages. Three suspects were caught in South Africa, about 30 miles from the reserve, and one was caught in the Netherlands.
This week, three people were charged with kidnapping, murder, robbery, and theft at Durban High Court. Sayefundeen Aslam Del Vecchio, 39, his wife Bibi Fatima Patel, 28, and Mussa Ahmad Jackson, 35, who was staying with them at the time, all deny all of the charges.
The court was told, “It was found that the defendants were taking money out of different ATMs, which was a theft of 734,000 rand (£37,000), and their Land Cruiser and camping gear were stolen.”
The court was told that the receipts in Bibi Patel’s purse matched the things Rachel Saunders bought with her bank card. Mussa Ahmad Jackson, a lodger, was arrested a month after the couple, and he is said to have told police that he helped get rid of the bodies.
Rod and Rachel met when he was in charge of the nursery at Cape Town’s famous Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and she was a top microbiologist at a nearby university.
Rachel was born in South Africa, but she got British citizenship when she married Rod. She was a big fan of collecting native seeds and went all over South Africa to find different kinds of gladioli.
Rod quit his job to travel with her, and the two of them started a successful business selling seeds all over the world.
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