Horror of 1966 Free State murders rendered in remarkable forensic detail

Daily Maverick

04-05-2025

True-crime series Niggies tells the story of the rape and murder of two 12-year-olds in 1966 Free State. It's excellent, if harrowing, viewing.
The nine-part true-crime series Niggies (Cousins) is a gripping South African stand-out addition to this popular genre.
The disappearance of six-year-old Joshlin Smith was the real-time backdrop for the release on 25 March on DStv Streaming (scheduled for later on Showmax) of Niggies, set in the northern Free State goldfields in 1966.
The media frenzy, the fear that rippled through the community and the hunting down of suspects in Free State's Odendaalsrus is redolent of events in the Middelpos informal settlement in Diazville, Saldanha Bay, when Joshlin vanished.
Two cousins, Issie Fourie and Petro Nel, both 12, disappeared after leaving to swim at the municipal pool. Later, after a massive search by police and residents, the girls were found in an abandoned building, bound, each with a shot to the back of the head. Police confirmed both girls had been violently raped.
The horror
Though 58 years separate the Smith and Fourie-Nel cases, they captured national attention because of the horror of these stories.
The National Party, with HF Verwoerd as its leader, won a comprehensive victory in 1966, strengthening the power of the ruling party. It gained a two-thirds majority in Parliament. District Six in Cape Town was declared 'white' and in September, Communist Party member and messenger Dimitri Tsafendas assassinated Verwoerd.
Niggies unpicks, in remarkable forensic detail, the impact of the tragedy of the girls' rape and murder. Lives were shattered while the case remained unsolved for 18 years.
What makes Niggies – directed by the multi-award-winning innovator Jaco Bouwer – truly remarkable is the depth of the research that went into making it.
Willem van der Merwe is the grandson of Gustaff and Maks Fouché, relatives of the victims and one of the families that was drawn into the triangle of intrigue, speculation and rumour. Van der Merwe hit the mother lode when he discovered old rolls of film in 2020.
Several reels of 8mm film had been stored in an old school suitcase (which, it turned out, had belonged to Issie, one of the murdered cousins). Van der Merwe is the son of Poppie, daughter of Gustaff and Maks, who was six when the murders took place.
The film was shot by Issie's father, Dries (Jacques Bessenger), and kept safe by his son André (played by Beer Adriaanse as the older André and stunning newcomer Janru Steenkamp as the teenager).
Stellar performances
Wolflight Pictures with Roelof Storm, Willem van der Merwe and Gideon Lombard produced the series, which is the first television series script by celebrated writers Saartjie Botha and Philip Rademeyer. It is edge-of-the-seat viewing.
Issie's mother, Marie Fourie (Tinarie van Wyk Loots), blamed André for leaving the two girls alone at the pool to cycle around town that afternoon. André later became a police officer, vowing to catch his sister's killer/s. He died in 2010. The footage he stashed, which Van der Merwe found, delivered a goldmine of images and footage of the stunned families, and included the bloody crime scene and the sombre public funeral.
Two characters helplessly drawn in by circumstance are live-in domestic worker Sophie (Peggy Tunyiswa) and farm hand Samuel Ndungane (Mbulelo Grootboom).Their portrayals are searing, as the actors are required to embody the silent burden of individuals whose own lives are in deep turmoil and plagued by poverty and loss.
Prior to the cousins' decision to swim, we see Sophie serving the three families who have gathered at the large Nel home, a centrifugal point for relatives and friends.
The world outside
Van Wyk Loots renders a wounded and helpless Marie, who grew up in an orphanage and has just fled violence on the mines in Zambia. Her anxious and absent husband, Dries, is still en route.
Marie relentlessly orders Sophie around as she quietly busies herself with chores while it dawns on all that the girls have vanished.
In an early episode, a distressed child, Nthabiseng (Ropa Tatiana), sits with Sophie as she hangs up the family's laundry. The little girl is her daughter, too young to be separated from her mother but about to be sent 'back home' to live with family.
The wonderful Grootboom perfectly captures Samuel's bewilderment when he is first suspected of the heinous crimes, alongside Gustaff Fouché (played with solemnity and dignity by Albert Pretorius). Fouché is targeted by other family members who regard him as 'lower class'.
It is a strong writing and directional decision to insert, as a simmering subplot, Sophie, who must console and feed these families while dealing with her own longing and grief. It provides unspoken depth to the tragedy and its retelling.
This is a large, accomplished ensemble cast who come to sombre life in cinematographer Chris Lotz's gorgeous Free State 1960 Kodachrome palette.
Episode seven will be broadcast on 6 May on kykNET. You can binge previous episodes on DStv Stream. The show is in Afrikaans with excellent English subtitles. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.