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The murder of Rachel and Rodney Saunders: How RARE seeds may have led to brutal killings of botanist couple

A South African gang allegedly murdered the botanist couple for collecting and selling rare seeds from their nature reserves on their website

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA: British botanist couple Rachel and Rodney Saunders were brutally murdered by a gang in South Africa who disposed of their bodies in crocodile-infested waters. Now, after four years of their death in 2018, it has been alleged that the South African gang was outraged at the couple for collecting and selling off rare seeds from indigenous nature reserves, reports the Daily Record. 

Rachel, 63, and Rodney, 74, had met their fateful end merely days after they had been interviewed by BBC to feature on the show 'Gardeners' World'. The residents of Cape Town were avid horticulturalists and would spend six months a year exploring remote regions across mountains and forests to study and collect rare seeds indigenous to the place. They then sold these seeds on their global online business called 'Silverhill seeds' which they ran from home. 

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A selfie taken by BBC TV presenter Nick Bailey of 'Gardeners' World' posted on Twitter is believed to be the last picture of the couple alive. After filming the episode, the Saunders decided to camp at a dam by a remote forest. The last person they contacted was an employee at their online business on February 8. They seemed to be headed off to the Ngoye Forest Reserve, 90 miles north of Durban. 

However, soon they were unreachable. Their badly decomposed and eaten bodies were pulled out of the crocodile-infested waters by a local fisherman several days later. They had been brutally battered with a blunt instrument and their bodies were wrapped in sleeping bags before being thrown. Unrecognizable, the search for the horticulturalists continued and it was only months later that the police ordered the DNA testing of all unidentified and unclaimed bodies at the morgues. 

Arrests were made and the suspects Sayefundeen Aslam Del Vecchio, 39, his wife Bibi Fatima Patel, 28, and their lodger at the time Mussa Ahmad Jackson, 35, denied all charges of kidnapping, murder, robbery, and theft at the Durban High Court. Cell phones of the dead couple were found with the fourth suspect who was allegedly not involved in the murder. As per media reports, Del Vecchio sent a message to both Patel and Jackson on February 10 stating that an elderly couple was in the forest who would be a good "hunt". He also added that he had the "target".

The court heard that on February 10, the investigating officer was informed of Rachel and Rodney's kidnapping in the Kwa-Zulu Natal region. On February 13, the defendants had been drawing money from several ATMs that amounted to a theft of R734,000 ($41,270) in addition to the Land Cruiser and camping equipment. The receipts of items purchased via Dr Saunders' bank card were found in Bibi Patel's handbag. The court was also told that "between February 10 and 15 at the Ngoye Forest, the accused did unlawfully and intentionally kill Rachel Saunders and between the same dates, did unlawfully and intentionally kill Rodney Sanders."