Murdered Rod and Rachel Saunders spent their time trekking the South African seeking out seeds (Image: Robin Matthews/Facebook)
An ISIS-linked gang who stabbed and bludgeoned a British couple to death before feeding their bodies to crocodiles in South Africa have been convicted of their murders.
World-renowned botanists Rod Saunders, 74, and his wife Rachel, 63, were ambushed while out searching for rare gladioli flowers in a remote mountain range. The couple, married for over 30 years and based in Cape Town, met a horrific end while setting up camp beside a forest dam in a national park.
A South African court heard how the pair were brutally tortured for Rachel’s gold credit card PIN number and bank account details before being bludgeoned to death.
Their bodies were then wrapped in their sleeping bags and hurled from the Tugela River Bridge in the Ngoye Forest National Park into the jaws of waiting Nile crocodiles.
Just 48 hours before the attack, the botanic experts had been interviewed by BBC presenter Nick Bailey for a Gardeners’ World special in the remote Drakensberg Mountains.
Shortly after the BBC2 wildlife documentary crew and the botanical specialists went their separate ways, the couple was attacked after pulling over their 4×4 to prepare for camp.
Durban High Court heard how gang ringleader and Muslim convert Sayefundeen Del Vecchio, 44, acting alone had identified them to his wife and lodger by phone as a “good hunt”.
He subsequently ambushed the couple, forcing them to hand over their bank details before brutally killing them, then texting wife Bibi Patel, 34, and lodger Mussa Jackson, 40, to announce the “prey are in hellfire”.
Italian-born Del Vecchio instructed wife Patel, the daughter of a Muslim cleric, and Malawian lodger Jackson to rendezvous with him in the Saunders’s stolen Toyota Land Cruiser. By that point, the court heard, Rod and Rachel Saunders were already dead in the back of the vehicle.
Post-mortem examinations revealed that Rachel had been savagely struck multiple times to the back of her skull with a machete-like heavy blade and repeatedly stabbed in the upper back. She had also suffered severe blows from a heavy blunt instrument, believed to be the same weapon used to cave in the skull of her husband Rod.
Both victims were then stuffed into their sleeping bags and callously thrown into the back of their Toyota Land Cruiser 4×4. They were driven to meet the wife and lodger in the forest, before travelling to Tugela River Bridge, where the victims, still in their blood-soaked sleeping bags, were hurled into the crocodile-infested waters below.
Their mutilated bodies were eventually discovered washed ashore, in such a horrific condition they were completely unrecognisable. It required the combined efforts of two pathologists, DNA analysis and a dental expert to finally confirm their identities.
Eight years after the murder, the ISIS-linked trio have been found guilty. The court was told how the trio were caught after having embarked on a R734,000 (£37,000) spending spree over a two-day period, using Dr Saunders’ gold credit card over.
They also purchased Bitcoin and drained her savings directly into their own bank accounts.
A shop assistant, growing suspicious as the group made increasingly extravagant purchases, eventually challenged one of them to prove they were Dr Saunders. The gang promptly fled the store, prompting staff to alert police.
Murdered Rod and Rachel Saunders outside their Cape Town company Silverhill Seeds (Image: Pacific Bulb Society)
Officers had already launched a search for the beloved couple, unaware of their horrific fate, after concerned colleagues reported that the pair had failed to make their regular check-ins.
Tracing the trail of credit card transactions ultimately led investigators to the gang, who were already listed on a terrorist warning list. The phones belonging to the Saunders were subsequently discovered at their property.
The elite South African police unit, the Hawks, also recovered jewellery, personal belongings, camping equipment, laptops and the stolen Toyota. The Hawks also discovered an ISIS flag displayed in the garden alongside ISIS pamphlets and literature inside the property.
Given the ISIS connections, the Foreign Office issued warnings regarding a terror threat to British tourists in South Africa following revelations that Del Vecchio and his wife appeared on a terrorist watchlist.
However, no terrorism-related charges were ultimately brought against the ISIS-supporting trio.
Judge Esther Steyn convicted all three defendants of double murder, kidnap, robbery and theft following one collapsed trial and a gruelling 160 court days during which 60 witnesses gave testimony.
Judge Steyn said that DNA evidence alongside mobile phone data and usage had connected all three “without doubt” to the killings, which were committed with “joint purpose and equal guilt”.
All three refused to leave their police holding cells to hear the verdicts delivered in court.
Speaking via video link to the court, a Saunders family spokesman based in the UK said: “Still after so many years the incident itself and the aftermath causes distress to the family. It was an awful incident and we do not want to dwell on the event as it was dealt with in detail at the trial.”
Sentencing was postponed until June 19. The trio face a mandatory life sentence under South African law, ranging from a minimum of 15 years through to a full life term.
