Jesse Hess’ relative and second suspect appear for double murder

Jeers rang out in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court as a shackled David van Boven was escorted into the dock on Wednesday along with an accomplice for the murder of Jesse Hess and her grandfather Chris Lategan, three months after they were found dead in their home.

“Vir wat wil jy my gesig sien? (Why do you want to see my face?)” Van Boven responded to those in the court as they called out for him to remove his hoodie while he and co-accused Tasliem Ambrose left the dock.

They face two charges of murder and two of aggravated robbery. Prosecutor Emily Van Wyk said further charges may be added.

Van Boven, 31, is Hess’s second cousin on her mother’s side. According to her father’s side of the family, she always feared him as he had spent most of her life behind bars for the rape of a close relative.

He had been released on parole in December.

He was arrested in Struisbaai last Wednesday and had been on the run after allegedly raping a 16-year-old girl in Hanover Park that Monday.

Police had at the time identified him as a person of interest in the murder of his second cousin and her grandfather.

News24 understands he had been a suspect from the beginning of the investigation.

Neither applied for bail.

It’s been almost 20 years since Jesse Hess’s father last saw Van Boven.

On Wednesday, he saw the man who once called him “Uncle Lance”, appearing in the dock for his daughter’s murder.

“I don’t know… I have such mixed feelings,” Lance said as women protested outside the Bellville Magistrate’s Court after the case was postponed to February next year.

He admitted that he had dreaded seeing Van Boven, who tried to hide his face as he entered the packed courtroom.

Hess family spokesperson Richard Hess slammed Van Boven’s “arrogance” after he faced off with people in the court who demanded he remove his hoodie as he returned to the court’s holding cells.

“I hope he is going to get his day and that [this time] he doesn’t come out.”

Hess was a first-year theology student at the University of the Western Cape who dreamt of one day becoming a pastor.

Her “spiritual father” in the Church of Nazarene, Pastor Deon Thole, who had seen her half-naked body as her traumatised loved ones waited for three hours for police to arrive that day, said all he wanted was justice for Jesse.

“I am very saddened by the State. It took them three months to apprehend a suspect. Now it’s going to take them another three to do an investigation,” he said after the matter was postponed.

On the day of her murder, he had gone to the Parow police station to find out why the authorities were not at the scene after numerous calls were made to report the two bodies that were found in the flat.

There had allegedly not been a police van available to respond to the scene, according to him.

“The police have failed us. They only came three hours later. The family was in agony,” he said.

“I am extremely upset with the way Jesse died, but also the way the police dealt with this matter.”

Van Boven opted for legal aid, while Ambrose said he would like to represent himself.

The case was postponed to February 12 for further investigation.

Ahead of her cousin’s appearance in the dock, Sandy – wearing a T-shirt with a collage of photos of a smiling Jesse – admitted she didn’t know “how to feel”.

“I am numb,” she said.

Van Boven also has a previous conviction for aggravated robbery.

Ambrose has previous convictions for drug possession and gun possession.

Hess and Lategan, 85, were found dead in the family’s Parow flat on August 30.

Her aunt Sandy had raised the alarm after she was unable to reach them by phone.

A neighbour had seen Lategan slumped on the bathroom floor through a window, and Jesse’s stepmother Audrey Hess had found her naked body in the bedroom after breaking through the glass-panelled door.

The pair are believed to have been strangled.

No sign of forced entry had been found, and Sandy had suspected from the start that there was more to the murders than a random robbery gone wrong.

Only a TV set, two cellphones and Jesse’s backpack were stolen from the house.

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