‘Cult’ couple hid in veld

Police left no stone unturned as they searched for a French couple involved in a shooting incident in which a South African police officer was killed and another was wounded. Photo: Michael Walker, Cape Times

Police left no stone unturned as they searched for a French couple involved in a shooting incident in which a South African police officer was killed and another was wounded. Photo: Michael Walker, Cape Times

Published Jan 21, 2011

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In the Karoo dusk last night, forensic pathologists carried out the bodies of a fugitive French couple, wanted for murder, who died in a police shootout at a vacant farmhouse only 400 metres from where they had lived.

Philippe Meniere, 60, and his partner Agnes Jardel, 55, died in a dramatic shootout around midday yesterday.

But police left their bodies for several hours in the positions in which they had died until the bomb squad had ensured there were no explosives attached to them. They feared the couple may have booby-trapped themselves with explosives.

After a massive six-day manhunt, the couple were killed at a vacant farmhouse outside Sutherland yesterday – only 400m from their home on the same farm.

Northern Cape police spokesman Colonel Hendrick Swartz said late yesterday: “The man is sitting in a certain position, like this (raising his arms as if he was holding a gun). It is possible, we don’t know, that the bodies may be booby-trapped, so they will not be moved yet, not until the explosive experts have been to the scene.”

Swartz would not be drawn on whether the couple had been killed by police in the shootout or whether they had shot themselves.

Police found several guns and a supply of ammunition with the couple.

The bodies had not yet been formally identified.

Although they were found in a vacant Karoo farmhouse outside Sutherland, a stone’s throw from the farmhouse where they had lived for nearly 12 years, police said it appeared they had not hidden there for long.

“We found a resting place in the veld on Tuesday where we could see they had been, so they were not in that house then, they were in the veld.”

The “resting place” was on the 3 000ha farm called Hardie, owned by Gerhardus du Plessis, where the couple had lived rent-free for 12 years, with permission from Du Plessis.

Police said trackers following the couple’s footprints had led them to the resting place in the veld, but because of the hard soil and high winds between the time of their fleeing on Friday and police finding the resting place, the tracks could not be followed.

Meniere and Jardel had been on the run since last Friday, after they had allegedly shot dead student police officer Jacob Boleme during an altercation outside their home concerning the possession of illegal firearms. Warrant Officer Glenwall du Toit was wounded.

The couple’s death brings to an end a massive manhunt, during which over 70 police officers, with highly trained trackers and dogs, searched the 3 000ha farm on foot and from the air for six days.

In the end, the couple, who astonishingly managed to remain at large for so long, had crept back almost right under the noses of the investigating team, who had set up their operational headquarters in the house next door to the couple’s home.

It’s all over, but no one is nearer finding out just who Meniere and Jardel were. What were they about? How did the couple, who came to Sutherland to get away from city life and escape “the system”, who seemed so peaceful and who would “not even kill a snake”, end up shooting a young police officer dead?

What had sparked the seemingly crazy behaviour? If the police know, they’re not saying, and nor are Jaen and Cobus du Plessis, sons of Gerhardus.

The little information that can be gathered about the couple is that Meniere was a medical doctor, trained in France, who had come to South Africa in the 1980s. Police said he had worked at Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital in Joburg and at Coronation Hospital.

Little is known about Jardel. She told the Du Plessis family that she had been involved in advertising.

The couple came to Sutherland about 12 years ago, and rented a house there. It’s a tiny town, and Gerhardus du Plessis soon got to know them.

When it became apparent that they wanted to find a farm to live on, he offered them the original farmhouse in his property, 22km outside Sutherland.

Du Plessis did not live permanently on the farm, as he ran a construction business with his son Cobus in town. It suited him to have the couple on the farm, as there was a lot of stock theft in the area, and having someone on the place would provide security.

Du Plessis was divorced at the time. The family got to know them over the decade they lived there, but did not find out much about their background – nor were they particularly forthcoming. They did, however, say they belonged to the Rama School of Enlightenment, and over discussions over the years, it became apparent that they believed that the end of the world was near, and even asked Du Plessis if he would build them a survival bunker. He laughed it off.

But they appeared to take the survival aspect seriously. In their house, police found stacks of tinned food, camping equipment, paraffin, gas bottles, candles, firelighters and water containers – and lots of equipment with which to make bullets.

The couple escaped with several weapons, and left Meniere’s passport and R8 000 cash behind in the safe.

Police say Du Plessis wanted to evict the couple from the house where he had allowed them to live rent-free. He had since married, and his new wife and his sons wanted to renovate the historic farmhouse for their own use.

The couple had apparently agreed to move by December, but did not.

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