RedHanded - Episode 292 - Griekwastad: The Steenkamp Family Massacre

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

The sleepy town of Griekwastad South Africa woke up to absolute horror on Good Friday 2012. Three members of the local Steenkamp family had been brutally murdered, leaving their 17-year-old son Don as the only survivor. As the dust settled people blamed everything from a so-called ‘white genocide farm attack’ to a Satanic Cult. However, the reality and the family secrets that emerged were far darker than anything cooked up by the press.Follow us on social media:InstagramTwitterVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And welcome to Red Handed. We're going back to South Africa, and because this is quite a rural case, quite a lot of the words are very, very, very difficult for us stupid English speakers to pronounce. So I have been in touch with our South African Afrikaner correspondent. But we make no promises.

Now, guys, we can't be from everywhere. We can't do all of the accents of the world because that's not how the world works. So we'll try our best. Yeah. We appreciate that we're probably pronouncing things wrong. But... Know that we tried.

Sorry about that. And for not South African listeners, this is how you're supposed to say the town that we are talking about today. Griecois stad. It's a difficult one. Griecoisstad. Yeah, no, I'm going to say Griecoisstad. Yeah, absolutely no fucking chance, I'm afraid. Sorry. There you go. But we tried. We tried, we failed, we moved on. On Friday the 6th of April 2012, the streets of Rehwastad, a quiet South African country town, were empty. Back then, the only people who passed through during the day were truckers and tourists on their way to somewhere else. With a small population of mostly farmers, there really wasn't much going on around there.

But that all changed after Good Friday, 2012. After that day, the whole of South Africa would know about the town that we're talking about, and unlike us, they could probably pronounce it. That evening, that Good Friday, at around 7pm, 15-year-old Don Steenkamp sped through the town's silent streets in his father's white SUV and skidded to a halt outside of the police station. With his body covered in blood and a terrified look on his face, the boy ran towards two shocked officers behind the front desk. They knew Don, and they knew his family, so they could hardly believe what they were hearing

when the stammering, blood-stained, brace-faced 15-year-old dropped to his knees and shouted, they're all dead, please help me. But the night's horror had a lot more revelations to come, including a shocking family secret that no one could have imagined. When Don arrived at the station, he could barely talk. But eventually he managed to tell the story of what happened. He said he'd been out in the barn while the rest of his family were watching TV in the house, when he'd suddenly heard gunshots. He hid until the shots stopped, and then he went to the house and found his entire family brutally murdered.

Don then led the officers to the SUV and handed over a.357 Magnum revolver and a.22 calibre rifle that he'd brought with him from the farm. He said that they were his father's and he'd found them lying around outside on the ground by the gate to the farm as he was driving to the station. He guessed that they must have been used as the murder weapons, since his dad usually kept them locked up in a safe. After reliving the nightmare he'd just endured,

Don asked if he could wash his family's blood off his hands, arms and legs. And feeling for the kid, because remember he's only 15, the warrant officers let him. And within minutes, the officers put out a call to every police unit in the kid, because remember, he's only 15, the warrant officers let him. And within minutes, the officers put out a call to every police unit in the province before throwing on their bulletproof vests, grabbing their rifles and speeding off towards the farm. Don was left at the station with two officers. As all of this madness was unfolding,

the manager of a local restaurant, which sat directly across the street from the police station, had been carefully watching on. This was, by the way, the only restaurant in town, and the manager, Henriette Troutter, felt sorry for Don. And so, with the officer's permission, she took the shaking 15-year-old over the road and gave him some food. She asked Don whether he knew the phone numbers of any of his family and to her surprise the boy pulled out his mobile phone and began making calls without any hesitation or that much emotion really. He phoned his uncle and grandparents to tell them

that his family had been massacred and then he asked Henriette, shall I tell my friends or only my best friends? Henriette found that pretty odd, but she knew, just like we all do, that people tend to behave oddly when they're in a state of shock, which it looked like he definitely was. Henriette didn't actually have much time to dwell on this moment because within hours, the restaurant was flooded with locals, as well as friends and family of the Steenkamps, who'd come to comfort Don.

Word travels quickly in a small town with a population of just 6,000. So who were the Steenkamps? Don's father, 44-year-old Dion, had been a well-respected and well-liked guy. He was an imposing presence, standing 6'3 and weighing 130 kilos, and could usually be found working on one of his five farms, which had been in the Steenkamp family for over 100 years. Dion was also a deacon at the local church and coached under-18 tent-pegging teams,

which, if you're lost like we were, tent-pegging is apparently an equestrian sport popular in South Africa. It doesn't sound like it has anything to do with horses, but okay. It does. So it's like turbo croquet, basically. Like people are on galloping horses, like full pelt horses, and they have to hit very small targets with some sort of sword, is my understanding. It used to be called gymkhana, but that's obviously got some colonial overtones. So they've changed it to tent pegging, which is more confusing.

Yes, very confusing. So Dion's wife and Don's mother, Christelle, took care of the family and was very much a pillar of the community. She also ran a successful biscuit baking business called Scrump Delicious. Sure, Christelle. She's like, look, Dion, you're tent pegging. You're not, it's not, the name doesn't match with what it is. My biscuit baking company

however what does it tell you when you hear the word scrum delicious they are scrum delicious and she even also worked as a local freelance journalist how much time does this woman have i mean loads probably because they've got a lot of money and then they also had a 14 year old daughter marcella steenkamp who was Don's youngest sister, so Don's the eldest. And Marthella's no slacker either because she was described as a future beauty queen who also had straight A's and was a serious athlete. So basically, from the outside, family is picture perfect. Who could possibly have wanted them dead? To their neighbours, the explanation was obvious.

The Steenkamps had obviously become the latest victims of South Africa's spate of farm murders. Which, to understand that properly, we're going to have to have a little bit of a red-handed rundown. After apartheid, the minority white population owned the vast majority of the land in South Africa. Under apartheid, 30% of the population controlled 85% of the wealth. What was being reported at the time, when people referred to these farm murders, is that the farmers would be white and the attackers tended to be black. For context, just 20% of South Africa's population were white at this time. By 2012, 67% of the land, 15% was for black communal areas and 10% was state-owned.

Just 8% was left for other purposes, including cities. During apartheid, white colonial settlers gained control of black-owned land by force. And land is enormously important in South Africa as it is everywhere else. It's not just a signifier of material resource, but also of collective identity, representing families and communities. And frustration at the government's failure to address this issue manifested in the form of farm attacks or farm murders, some would argue. And some white farmers called this a white genocide. This so-called white genocide, which was tweeted about by Trump and played constantly on Fox News, is a myth.

The most common statistic bandied around is that a white farmer is killed every five days in South Africa, but that's just not true. Africa Check has noted that this claim assumes that all the victims of farm murders are white, which is not the case. The majority of people killed in farm attacks are black farmhands. Even still, rural homicides account for 72 murders annually in South Africa. The rest of the country averages just under 50 murders per day. So even if all of the victims of the farm attacks were white, which they're not, it would account for a tiny percentage of the murders in the country. And the Southern Poverty Law Centre have said, and this is a quote, on a pie chart of total murders, the slice representing the killings of white farmers would look like the second hand of a clock. So I don't think we can call it a genocide.

Nevertheless, at the time of the Steenkamp murders in 2012, reports of these attacks were getting more and more common in South Africa. But in the Northern Cape province, where we are today, they were still quite rare. There'd be maybe one attack occurring every two years. Probably because the Northern Cape, whilst being the largest province in South Africa, is also the most sparsely populated. And you can check out the town on Google Maps and zoom out a bit. It's north of Bloemfontein. It really is in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. So after the Steenkamps were murdered, horror spread. People were thinking even farmers in such rural, isolated areas like Creek Vestad clearly weren't safe.

And this is the thing. I don't doubt for a second that that's the conclusion that people were coming to in this community. Oh, well, all of the white farmers are being murdered left, right and centre. Now it's all the way here. The fact that that's not the case and this systemic murder spree wasn't happening doesn't mean that those people didn't believe that that was the case. No, no, no. They 100% that's what was being believed.

And also, as you normally tend to see in the aftermath of a horrific murder like this, somebody who has something to gain from it jumps on the back of it. Totally, that's exactly what it is. And here, right-wing organisations jumped all over the massacre at the farm of the Steenkamps and jumped at every opportunity to claim that the family had been murdered by black people in a racially motivated killing, even though there was no evidence at all, even at the very start, other than the fact that they were white farmers, to point at that being the case. But, for now, back to the night of the murders, where the scene at the farm was also telling investigators a completely different story to that which would be spread by these right-wing

organisations over the coming weeks. Because usually, in farm murders, nobody was left alive, and absolutely anything of value was taken. Guns, jewellery, money, electrical appliances and cars. And here, there was no sign of a forced entry, no smashed window or doors. None of the drawers or cupboards had been ransacked. And although Dion's safe was wide open, it was still neatly stocked with guns and valuables. Yeah, so it doesn't look like any sort of farm attack at all. And also none of the family's dogs had been poisoned either, which was

a classic MO in typical farm attacks that had been seen in the country. In fact, basically the only thing that was out of place in the house, except for, you know, the murdered family, was an empty gun holster on the floor. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery Plus. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off

this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan we'll be finding andy you can listen to finding andy and finding natasha exclusively and ad free on wondery plus join wondery plus in the wondery app apple podcast or spotify you don't believe in ghosts i get it lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have consumed my entire life.

I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you find your favourite podcasts.

Two bullet holes were found, one in the house itself, on the wall of the TV room, and one in the barn, which was 30 metres away from the home. So that suggested that the shooter had either started shooting from outside, or had started from within the house and had followed somebody else outside. Police found a large puddle of congealed blood on the grass between the house and the barn. This, along with the fact that the blood around the bodies was smeared across the ground, led the police to believe that at least one of the three bodies had been moved. None of this added up.

It didn't match what you'd expect to see in a farm attack at all. And as officers were at the farm investigating the scene, Don was at the restaurant, retelling his version of events to a crowd now gathered around him. He explained that he had been in the barn fixing a light as his family were watching TV. He heard the gunshots and hid until they stopped. Then he found his mother dead by the computer

and his father lying face down just a foot away. His sister, Martella, was still alive when Don found her. It seemed as though she'd walked across the room, bleeding out and then collapsed. Don said that Marcella's last words were, Brother, I love you, before dying in his arms. During this explanation, it didn't occur to anybody, including the town's police,

to ask Don why he hadn't called for help instead of driving himself to the station. Or, you know, like why he didn't pick his sister up and put her in the car and bring her with him if she was still alive. But luckily, though, this crowd of horrified locals weren't in charge of investigating the case. Colonel Dick Duval was. By the time he arrived at Griekwistad police station, Duval had been with the police for over 30 years. And he had been head of the organised crime unit for half that time.

And Duval is a serious detective. He is a fucking super cop. We love Duval. He knows what he's doing. What he didn't know at the time, though, was that this case was about to become the biggest murder investigation of his career. When he'd been caught up by the police officers at the station, he went over to the restaurant to find 15-year-old Don. He was the only witness to the triple homicide,

and Duval needed all the information he could get. Duval immediately noticed that Don had a large fresh scratch on his neck and the detective was furious that the local police had let Don wash himself without collecting any samples from him. So Duval now told the officers to at least photograph Don, take scrapings from under his fingernails, collect any samples of dried blood that might still be left on him, and gather up his clothing and test for gunshot residue. You know, just like police stuff. It's such small-town mentality, isn't it? Yeah, they haven't got a fucking clue what they're doing,

and thankfully the colonel turns up and tells them what to do. So most of the samples that they had taken, like the fingernail scrapings, etc., would take a while to be processed. But gunshot residue tests only take about 30 minutes to complete. And Don's hands tested negative. But he had washed them, remember, so it wasn't exactly an all-clear for the teenager as far as DeVault was concerned. So DeVault didn't speak to Don much that night. He just asked him why he'd been so keen to clean the blood off himself.

To which Don explained that it was his sister's. She died in his arms, and he felt disgusted by it. With that, Duval asked one of Don's relatives to take him home with them, but made it very clear that he wanted to speak to the boy the following morning. The colonel then headed to the scene of the killings. Entering the house through an open back door, Duval made his way to the TV room, where one of the bullet holes was, remember.

The first thing he noticed was the dad, Dion's body, laying face down on the floor, with his hands folded under his chest. There was a smear of blood to the right of him and two bullets in the back of his head, just a few metres away with the bodies of Christelle and Marthella. Marthella was lying on her side, with her arms sticking out at strange angles,

facing her mother. Christelle was lying on her stomach, with her head near her daughter's feet. Both of them were covered in blood, but Marthella, who had been shot in the face, barely looked human at this point. Duval also noticed, in superstar detective style, that the landline was off the hook and covered in blood. The sound of police helicopters and teams of officers with dogs could now be heard from the farm as they scoured the surrounding area for suspects but they found nothing. There weren't even unknown tyre tracks or footprints

leading to or from the property nor did the police find any evidence to suggest that anybody other than the four members of the Stonecamp family had been on the farm that night. It doesn't look good. No, it's very much one of those closed-room mysteries. Yes. Somebody there did this. Yes, it is very much Cluedo. But to finish this closed-room mystery, the colonel was going to have to wait for the forensics to come back to be absolutely certain.

So the following morning, De Waal met Don at the police station and drove him to the farm. And on the way, Don said some pretty weird things for a 15-year-old whose family had just been annihilated. He asked a surprised De Waal what he needed to do in order to inherit everything. Oh, man. He also boasted quite a lot about how fast he'd driven his dad's truck to the police station the previous night. Once at the house, Don again very confidently explained the series of events as they'd unfolded on the night of the murders.

Duval listened, and also cast his experienced crime-fighting colonel eye over the house once more. This time, he found a bloodied and torn navy t-shirt sticking out from under a bed in one of the upstairs bedrooms. He bagged it for forensics. Back at the police station, a large crowd of journalists had gathered hoping for the latest news. But all the police could tell them was that they didn't have any suspects, they were just processing the evidence and speaking with witnesses. Which was, of course, an attempt to prevent any more media hysteria, but nice try.

As we usually see in cases like this, the lack of information just caused a vacuum, which made more people start speculating about what had actually happened. And you better believe that the media got hysterical. So yes, they've got the like farm murders theory but there were also a number of other theories that started to pop up once people realized that the police hadn't found anything that suggested anybody else had come or gone from the farm. Which is quite difficult to even if you ascribe to this farm attack theory right what's being reported is it's a group of assailants, right,

that descend on these farms in the dead of night and kill anyone in their path and steal loads of shit. It's almost impossible to cover that up, like, in the time. Like, it's a real red flag that there's no tracks. Yeah, so that idea is kind of the prevailing theory at the very start. But once it is very clear that nothing is kind of stolen from the farm, and like they said, there is no evidence to show that anybody came to the farm or left these are the theories that the media started circulating so theory number one did the dad Dion kill his wife and

daughter in a murder-suicide sparing his son a la the thing that some people believe with the Bain case which we absolutely don't or number two was it that Don had been told he was adopted that evening before freaking out and killing everybody? Which, like, isn't true. Don Steenkamp wasn't adopted. So that is just, like, people trying to think of whatever they could to explain this. Number three, had they all been killed by a satanic cult in a satanic ritual? Ding, ding, ding.

And had Marcella, the 14-year-old daughter, been a member of this cult that had then come and murdered her family? South Africa has its very own, very special brand of satanic panic. Yes, yes, yes. Which we covered in that episode. In Devil's Torp, yeah. So go and listen to that if you want to find out more of the fucking batshit stuff that was going on in South Africa way later than the rest of the world. Oh, absolutely. Because this is, guys, this is 2012 that this is happening. And actually that idea that the entire family had been killed by a satanic cult that Marcella had been a member of was a pretty popular idea.

Because, remember, they were killed on Good Friday. And Good Friday is apparently prime sacrificing day for Satanists. And as any good Satanist knows, to sacrifice a loved one is pretty top-notch unholiness, but to kill three, including a virgin, well, that would just be icing on the satanic cake. So presumably, if Marcella is a member of this cult the cult loves her but then they kill her and they kill her family and she's a virgin bing bing bing bing bing bing just just continuous bings and then Alistair Crowley appears to you and hands you a telegram congratulating you on becoming a 13th level satanist that doesn't even cast a shadow

so yeah this was one of the theories and basically the reason for this as to why it's popular to popular that's not the right word why people thought they may have been killed on good friday is because as the story goes in order to really mock the death of the big jc satanists sacrifice a man on good friday and then a man or a woman on easter sunday but that's like not even what happened here but sure close enough close enough they're like good enough good enough cult let's get out of here but also let's not because nobody came or went from this fucking farm that's exactly what happened with the kruger stop case they're like well kruger stop has five entrances so obviously it's a pentagram like they're they clutch they clutch they clutch. There's a lot of clutching.

Clutch, clutch, clutch. But not from Duval. He is not interested in any of that nonsense whatsoever. All he wanted to do was speak to Don. Duval is like the detective you need in cases like this. It was needed in things like the West Memphis Three, where it's just like, none of that is real. That's not what happened here.

Let's look at what actually did happen. The son that's still fucking alive. That very afternoon, Duval spoke for two hours with Don in an interview room. He was still officially being interviewed as a witness, but now the questioning was getting a bit more intense. We don't know exactly what Duval asked Don, but we do know that Don left the station with big, puffy red eyes. Of course, the rest of his extended family were heartbroken,

so they all rallied around Don. He had, after all, lost his parents and his sister in the worst way imaginable. A few days later, Colonel Duval observed the autopsies of the Stoen camps. The pathologists determined that all three of the victims had been shot several times with the same two guns that Don said he'd found by the gate, the.22 caliber rifle and the .357 Magnum revolver. It was also very clear that Marthela had been the real focus of the killer's rage. It's because she's in that cult. It's because she's the Virgin. Yes, but not as well.

Oh no. Spoilers. Dion had been shot three times, once in his right shoulder and once into the back of his head and once behind his left ear. Christelle, the mum, had been shot twice, once in the back and once into the back of his head and once behind his left ear. Christelle, the mum, had been shot twice, once in the back and once in the back of her head. Othello, however, had been shot four times, twice in the chest with the revolver

and twice in the right of her face, from close range with a rifle. What a rifle shot to the side of your face from such close range will do is force your eyeballs to pop out of their sockets. So poor Marcella was left with her entire face distorted into what is called by those in the know as the raccoon effect. Yeah. She's 14.

It's horrific. Next, the pathologist found that Dion had suffered blunt force trauma to the head, but only after he'd died. And Marcella had as well. Only, her injuries were significantly worse, and had also happened while she was still alive, possibly during a struggle with her attacker. What was clear was that the killer really wanted to make damn sure

that all three of the Stonecamps were dead. And finally, the autopsy had one more heartbreaking secret to reveal to do with Marcella's ordeal but we are going to have to come back to that. Eleven days after the murders the police had still not publicly announced any suspects. but we are going to have to come back to that. Eleven days after the murders, the police had still not publicly announced any suspects. In this time, Don had been taken in by a close friend of his father's,

a man named Benny Hekrut. Benny and Dion had both played a big part in popularising tentpegging in South Africa, and the two families had spent countless weekends away together. And Benny felt it was important for Don to return to normal life as soon as possible. So he sent the boy back to school a week after the murders. And Don, because remember we said that the Steenkamps were incredibly rich, attended Grey College in Bloemfontein, a prestigious private boys' boarding school.

I would say that Bloemfontein is the closest metropolitan centre to Rikwistad. It's the closest big city. It's the capital. It's the political capital. It's where the parliament is. And when he got back to school, Don seemed not to notice that almost everybody there seemed to suspect him of having killed his family. Especially since he seemed like an entirely different person after the massacre. Because 15-year-old Don used to be really shy and reserved. But since returning to school a week after his family were brutally murdered, he was more confident and loud and upbeat than ever before. Don even competed in a national tent-pegging tournament

just a couple of weeks after the murders and played better than he had ever played before. But whether he was simply ignoring the rumours or whether he was actually oblivious, that all changed when the local paper announced that the police's lead suspect in the murders was a 15-year-old. And they said, oh, obviously we can't identify who it could

possibly be because of the child protection act but it was pretty immediately obvious to everyone who they were talking about yeah no one else was in the house and except a 15 except a 15 so almost immediately the already concerned parents of the other pupils at this school wrote letters to the headteachers screaming that Don could go mental at any minute and slaughter all of their children. As a result, Don was expelled for a few days. But after Benny threatened legal action, they took him back. So, was tent-pegging champ 15-year-old Don

the killer of the rest of his family? Obviously, he had the opportunity to commit the murders. Exactly. He's in the house and all the guns that were used were his dad's guns, which were there. But what could his motive possibly have been? Well, for one, blood, sex, money all come together. There is the obvious answer, which is that he stood to inherit a crazy amount of money. The Steenkamps had set up two trusts, the Nauhuk trust for Don and the Edelweiss trust for his sister. But since Don was the only survivor of the family, he stood to inherit both trusts on his 21st birthday. A total of 23 million rand, which is almost a million quid.

Which in South Africa is astronomical. And presumably that's just the money in the trusts. It's not like the five farms that the Steenkamps own and like everything else that they probably have in other bank accounts. Yeah, that's like never have to work again money. Yeah. But that's quite calculated, an inheritance heist. It doesn't explain why the killings were quite so brutal.

If they had been committed by Don, who was just after the cash, why would he kill his family in such a dramatic way? Why would he take such a risk? After all, a bloody hand can't inherit any money. And there would have been way subtler ways to get away with it. It didn't make total sense. Still, on the 21st of August, almost four months after the triple homicide, Don was called into the head teacher's office,

where he found two police officers waiting for him. They arrested him on suspicion of murdering his family and deliberately marched him through the school, hoping that he might break down into tears and possibly even confess. But Don didn't waver. Not even slightly. Yeah, I don't think anything leading up to this point that we've learned about Don's personality suggests that he might break down and confess. On the car ride to the station, the breaking news that the police had just arrested their teenage suspect came on the radio.

And the officer was shocked to see, when he looked back at Don in the rearview mirror, that Don Stonecamp was smiling. It's so creepy. He's so creepy. Have you seen pictures of him? He's creepy. He's rocking this fucking weird- like 90s haircut in 2012. And yeah. Oh, woof.

Okay. Weird guy. Weird guy. Creepy guy. Imagine looking back in the police car and he's just smiling. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud.

In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle, the Space Shuttle. And in 1985, they announced they're sending teacher Krista McAuliffe into space aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger, along with six other astronauts. But less than two minutes after liftoff, the Challenger explodes. And in the tragedy's aftermath, investigators uncover a series of preventable failures by NASA and its contractors that led to the disaster. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Experience all episodes ad-free and be the first to binge the newest season only on Wondery Plus.

You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial today. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing.

From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So yeah, Don's bail hearing, because remember he's been arrested now, took place just two days later. And the judge was presented with a number of revelations from the forensic team. But first, Duval told the court

about the night when he first met Don at the station. He mentioned how officers had allowed the teenager to wash and change his shirt and he said that although Don's hands had tested negative for gunshot residue, which is easily washed off with soap and water, forensics found that his shirt, the one he had taken off at the police station, had tested positive for gunshot residue. So that's a bit of an issue for Don here. Then the pathologist revealed the most shocking discovery of all, and this is the one that we told you that we would come back to earlier on in the episode.

This discovery was that 14-year-old Marcella had likely been raped within a 12-hour period of her death. But they hadn't found any semen, so they didn't, like, have a sample that they could check against Don. The pathologist also added that older healed scars on Marcella showed that this sexual assault had likely not been the first one that she had endured. The judge was also told that the blunt force trauma that Marcella had suffered was consistent with the blood spatter found on Don's T-shirt, which is, of course, the navy T-shirt that Duval had found scrunched up under the bed because he's a 15-year-old. And even then, when he's trying to hide the evidence,

probably spoilers of murdering his entire family, he just shoves it under his bed. Yeah, he... I get what he's trying to do. I understand what he thinks he is pulling off. Yes. And I think that you can't ignore the situation of privilege in which he has grown up. He's white, he's Africana, he's wealthy. And if Duval hadn't turned up, he might well have got away with it. Oh, absolutely. And I think he thinks he's smarter than he is, but he doesn't do the most basic things like get

rid of his t-shirt properly. And just like, oh, well, these farm runners everyone's talking about. I'll just pretend it's one of those and I'll get away with it because look at me. Yeah, yeah. And this T-shirt that Duval had found under the bed also was torn at the neck. And this tear in the neck lined up with the fresh scratch marks that Duval had noticed on Don's neck the night in question. Next up were the findings from two forensics teams who analysed over 72 murder samples from the house. At the time that was the most number of samples ever collected from a murder scene in South Africa's legal

history. So no one can say that they weren't trying to solve this. And this is the crucial thing is that even after taking 72 DNA samples from that house, they were unable to identify any other DNA source from anyone else other than Don and his deceased family being present at the house on the night of the murders. It's like you said the other day, sometimes the absence of evidence is just as incriminating. Oh, absolutely.

And so, of course, things were not looking good for Donnie. Duval also estimated that the murders must have taken place between 6.34 and 6.54pm, which left a 20-minute gap between the deaths and Don turning up at the police station. It's like the Bain case. So much of this is so Bain. 20 minutes. Yeah, fuck off.

And the station was only a few minutes drive from the Stonecamp farm. And the timeline of Don's story, because he's a 15 year old boy who is too clever by half, did not add up. The teen's mobile phone records also showed that he'd repeatedly text one girl the day after the murders. He told this girl that although he was definitely innocent, he knew for sure that the police wouldn't find any evidence or fingerprints linking the crime to anyone else. Which, um, learn when to quit. Quit while you're ahead. I mean, you're not ahead, but you think you are. Yeah, because the police don't find any fingerprints or DNA connecting it to anybody else. But how did he know that a day after the murders?

How did he know they weren't going to find anything? Naturally, a judge denied Don bail. So he went to prison until the next court date. And for the first time, Don broke down in tears that he shed for himself. It's like Scott Peterson. Never cries when his wife and child are missing. Is this just like a supercut? It is. It's a red-handed supercut. And then the minute he's put in prison, he's losing loads of weight and looks terrible and is crying all the time.

And I'm like, yeah, you're sad. For you. But after 10 days on the inside, the judge decided that Don would be allowed to continue living with Benny until the trial. The judge thought that although the murders were horrific and brutal, Don had lived freely for the past few months without incident. Therefore, the judge didn't believe that Don was a threat to the public or a flight risk even. And you do have to wonder if that would have happened if he was black. Well, I don't think it would have happened if he was poor. No, exactly. And so, in the time between then and the trial, Don was homeschooled, sat his exams,

and even completed another tent-pegging tournament. Sure, why not? Hoping to gain a place in the national under-18 boys team, which is probably just six people. And also very optimistic. You're out on bail for triple homicide. And he's like, maybe I'll make the team this year. Once again, Don played remarkably well during what should have been a pretty rough time for him. And you bet your bottom rand that the word psychopath was cropping up in the papers

and in all of the local gossip. But at this stage in the game, Don is only 16 and he still couldn't be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder or psychopathy. And we often see psychopathy, psycho being just tossed around at people for no real reason or in no real context that means anything but i will give you all my money if don steenkamp is not a psychopath because he is you give me your aid or vice trust so with the trial approaching in the last week of february 2013 the police charged don the additional crime of the rape of Marthela, his sister. There were only two men on the farm, Dion and Don. And like we said, the forensics team said that Marthela was likely raped within a 12-hour window. So if there's no evidence of anybody else having been there in that time,

it had to be her dad or it had to be her brother. So if the rape had been carried out by Dion, her father, and the murders were some sort of revenge killing carried out by Don because he discovered what his father had done, then why would Marcella and Christelle, his mum, also have been killed? That doesn't make sense. So, it really left only one explanation that matched with what the forensics teams had found.

Don must have raped Marcella and slaughtered the whole family to cover it up. It could even explain why his mother was killed from behind, seen as more of like a merciful approach, and why there was so much overkill on Marcella. She was the reason why he had to do it, in Don's twisted head. So the trial was actually postponed for a few months, but once it got started, it was a nightmare. During the trial, the most graphic images from the crime scenes, because remember we explained to you what Marcella's body was like,

what the condition of her face was, all of this was shown. And the autopsies were shown to the courtroom, full of horrified onlookers, including the family, who actually had to leave because they couldn't bear it. The only person who seemed absolutely unaffected by any of the graphic violent images of his own family having been murdered, who looked almost bored in fact, was Don. Even when the expert testimony got going,

he didn't really seem like he gave too much of a shit. Dr Trump Ells took the stand as one of these expert witnesses and he was actually only one of a handful of experts in South Africa at the time that specialised in rape and sexual assault cases. Dr. Ells had conducted over 10,000 autopsies and worked on over 3,000 investigations and Ells was sure that Marthela had been raped based on her vaginal scarring, stating that in almost every rape case he'd worked on, the scarring was consistently in the same place. He also noted the scratch marks on the girl's back and said that they looked a lot like someone else

had forcibly pulled down her jeans. The defence, however, kept right on clutching at those straws. They tried their damnedest to get Dr. Els to concede that the injuries may have been caused by horseback riding or even a tampon. Oh, for God's sake. But, of course, Els wasn't having it. Did you see that absolutely awful campaign by Tampax?

On the 21st of November 2022, Tampax's official Twitter account tweeted the following. You're in their DMs. We're in them. We're not the same. Yeah, sure. Let's just sexualize teenage periods, shall we? Fuck's sake. I'm so glad I have endometriosis and I don't have periods. Fuck you. As if they're not traumatizing enough.

Yeah, right, right. Oh, God. I honestly think about that tweet, like, at least once a day. It's very upsetting. Expert testimonies, as they do, kept on coming. Another forensics expert took the stand to explain that they believed that Marcella had been first shot inside the house and then managed to make her way outside towards the barn.

She would have been bleeding profusely, but Marcella was in incredible shape. She was a top-rate athlete, so she would have been able to continue moving longer than the average person. The prosecution believed that Don had caught up with Marcella outside and then repeatedly hit her over the head, probably with the butt of the revolver.

It was during this struggle that Marthela would have managed to tear Don's T-shirt, they argued. And even after all that, the blood smears on the walls suggested that Marthela had somehow managed to make her way back inside the house in an attempt to use the landline. Which explains why it had blood on it and why it was off the hook. Yeah. Because we know Don didn't try call anybody.

The prosecution also refuted Don's story that he'd found the weapons on the grounds by the gate. Forensics didn't find any grass, a speck of dust, or even a scratch on either gun. So they probably hadn't been anywhere outside. And after all this compounding evidence, something happened that nobody expected, but that I did. Don took the stand. I'm surprised he's not defending himself. Yes. And as any good defence lawyer knows, do not let your client take the

stand. It doesn't end well. But in classic, don't worry, I've got this, I'm a psychopath style, Don was all in. And of course, his entire story fell apart under the intense scrutiny of the prosecution's questioning, but I argue it probably would have fallen apart under just the fucking gentlest of questions by fucking grandma next door. Nothing added up. Firstly, it would have been way too dark for him to spot the guns on the ground outside the farm gates, especially as he said he was speeding to the police station in his dad's van. Then there was the issue with the hiding spot, because remember he said when he heard the gunshots he hid in the barn.

But that hiding spot was only 16 metres from where Marthella had been assaulted outside. But he claimed not to have seen any of the attackers. How is that possible? Don also said he'd gone upstairs to change t-shirts, but he didn't have any time to arm himself before leaving. But you had time to change your t-shirt? Also, why? Why are you changing your t-shirt? He then said it hadn't occurred to him to phone for help, either on the landline or on the mobile phone that was in his pocket the entire time because remember when he gets to the restaurant with Henriette he calls his family. Don squirmed under questioning the

entire time and changed his story multiple times saying now that he'd never stopped to check if any of his family were alive before leaving but when he was at the police, he told the police that Marcella had been alive when he left, because remember, we were like, why didn't he take her with him if that was the case? The prosecution then pointed out that he hadn't asked once for any updates on the condition of his family after reporting the murders to the police. He never indicated that he hoped anyone would survive either, which again, remember, if he thought that Marcella was alive when he left, why doesn't he ever ask if she's okay,

if she pulled through? Also, he never asks if any of them are okay, but now he's saying he never checked if any of them were dead. It didn't make sense. The only thing he ever asked Duval about was his inheritance. The defence did try their best to present a possibility that the killings were the work of a stranger intruder But they don't have that much to work with Firstly, if the killings had been committed by a stranger intruder That would mean that whoever that was arrived on the farm, on foot and unarmed And somehow managed to sneak past the family.

And I do not believe for a second that the family did not have an armed response security system on their farm. Everyone has them. I don't believe that they didn't. Don't break into a rural farm with a farmer where a farmer lives knowing that he will have guns on foot and unarmed. But let's suspend our disbelief for a second and go with this intruder theory. So this intruder somehow manages to sneak past the family, go upstairs into the gun locker, which he knows where that is,

and kill all of the family, except Don, obviously, inexplicably then deciding to leave behind 32,000 round in cash, not steal a vehicle, and leave the farm on foot the way they came, and also remember to drop the murder weapons 50 metres from the house with no DNA on them, and be the dumbest farm attacker in South African history. So yes, not much of that makes any sense. The final nail in Don's coffin came when the prosecution told him that he'd given himself away long ago by telling various people things that only the killer could have known. For example, Don told his aunt that Christelle, his mum, had been sitting in front of the computer when she

was shot. He also told the town priest that Martella had attempted to use the landline. And he also told the owner of the local restaurant that Dion, his father, had jumped up, fallen forward, and slid on the floor when he was shot. But according to Don's story, the one he told the police, he had been hiding in the barn the whole time. So how the fuck would he know all of that? It's because he killed them. That's why he knows. Because he did it.

72 witnesses had testified so far in this mammoth trial. And there would be just two more, a couple who were friends of Dionne and Christelle. They said that on the night before the murders, Dionne and Christelle had come to their house for dinner, but neither Don or Marcella were present, which meant that the brother and sister had been alone on the farm together. Yeah, and if she was raped within 12 hours of her murder, and we know that Dion was out at dinner for a lot of those 12 hours, and we know that nobody else came or left from that farm, according to the DNA evidence, it really could only have been Don.

The prosecution wrapped up their cross-examination by saying, you undoubtedly raped Marthella and murdered her and her parents to hide the truth. Don just glared at him, speechless. And that was that. And the prosecution's case relied almost solely on circumstantial evidence, but a shit ton of it. And in classic throwback style that this episode has become we've said it before and we'll say it again circumstantial evidence is evidence and it can often be much stronger than direct evidence in linking a person to a murder and don't let any sneaky little defense lawyers tell you anything different so, the verdict was due to be given on the 11th of December 2013.

But in one final fuck-you moment, the day before the verdict was due, Don fired his entire legal team, forcing the judge to postpone the verdict for four months. That's a little shit. He really is. But eventually, Don couldn't put it off any longer, and the judge ruled that it was beyond a reasonable doubt that Don was indeed guilty of raping Marcella,

murdering her, Christelle and Dion, and for defeating the ends of justice by lying about it. On the 13th of August 2014, five months after his conviction, and two days before his 18th birthday, Don was sentenced to 76 years in prison. 20 years for each murder, 12 years for the rape, and four years for lying to the police.

But the sentences are to be served concurrently, so Don Steenkamp will be out before he's 40. Which is horrifying. Bad news. Bad news all round. Right there? Yeah. Just so arrogant so arrogant absolutely and yeah this is a case that we've had requested by many of you over many a year and we decided to do it now because um you may have noticed in the first line of this episode that it did in fact

happen if you are listening to this on the day of release, 11 years, 11 years to the day. To the very day. 6th of April. So there you go. So he'll probably be out in what, four or five years? Oh, what? Hmm. Let's leave. But yeah, that's it, guys.

That is the case of, I will say it one more time, because why not? Greek was stuck. Well done. Take it or leave it. And we'll see you next time for something else. Goodbye. Bye. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America.

But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so.

Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real.

From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus.