Durban - A grandson’s cellphone may hold the clue to what happened to a family who disappeared while travelling from Durban to Standerton, Mpumalanga.
Julia Venter has been desperately searching for her daughter Jacqueline, 40, her boyfriend Trevor Stokes, 53, Jolene Venter, 4, and Barend Venter, 13, after she dropped them off at
a Durban bus station on May 2.
“I said goodbye to them, and that was the last I saw of them,” said Venter.
The family were travelling to Standerton where Stokes had found work at Twisdraai mine.
Venter told her daughter to contact her while she was on the bus.
“She WhatsApped me and said they would be arriving in Villiers.”
But after that, Venter heard nothing more. Over the next week she tried to call, but all the family’s cellphones were switched off.
Then on Thursday night, Venter phoned Barend’s phone and it rang.
“A man answered the phone, he told me that he had bought the phone from two men.”
Venter tried to phone back but the man did not answer the phone again.
“I don’t know if they have been robbed, if they have been badly hurt. Maybe they were attacked when they were dropped off at Villiers,” she said. “I don’t know if they are still alive.”
Venter has been phoning towns near Standerton, hoping to find out what happened to her family.
Brighton Beach SAPS have confirmed a missing person’s report had been filed and the investigation “is ongoing to locate the family”. If anyone has information, contacSAPS Brighton Beach W/O Varley 0314518091 or Pink Ladies 0722147439.