Shanice Rudolph, a 23-year-old pregnant woman, vanished after a quick trip to the corner shop and was found buried in Klip Road Cemetery. She and her unborn son tragically died from brutal blunt-force trauma, likely from a concrete rod. “Oom Boeta,” a backyard mechanic known to her family, has been arrested in connection with this heartbreaking double murder. This case has ignited fury, with activists demanding justice and stronger laws against violence towards pregnant women.
What happened to Shanice Rudolph?
Shanice Rudolph, a 23-year-old pregnant woman, disappeared after a quick errand and was found buried in Klip Road Cemetery. She and her unborn son died from blunt-force trauma, with a concrete reinforcing rod suspected as the weapon. A backyard mechanic, “Oom Boeta,” known to her family, has been arrested in connection with her murder.
A Quick Errand That Never Ended
Shanice Chante Rudolph, 23 and seven months along, stepped out of her family’s sunflower-yellow flat in Lotus River just after sunset on the first Tuesday of December 2025.
She told her little sister she’d be right back – just a dash to the corner shop for ginger biscuits and the pink marshmallows that had hijacked her pregnancy cravings all week.
She never walked through the front door again.
Four days later, a municipal grader smoothing a new access lane inside Klip Road Cemetery nicked a patch of sand and exposed the pale crescent of a human fingernail.
By lunchtime, forensic archaeologists had cleared enough soil to uncover a tight, shallow grave: Rudolph lay curled like a question mark on her left side, one running shoe still tied, the other gone.
A neon-pink synthetic dread – identical to the one she wore in a high top-knot the night she vanished – was tangled in the uprooted kikuyu grass above her.
The pathologist’s report would later state that both mother and unborn son died from repeated blunt-force trauma. Investigators refuse to name the object, but insiders confirm a concrete reinforcing rod, bloodied at one end, was picked up 80 m away among wilted funeral wreaths.
Open Gates, Closed Cases
Grassy Park detectives opened docket CA 12/12/2025, yet because Rudolph was first reported missing at Steenberg station, the file must shuttle back down the southern corridor once the crime-scene phase closes.
Captain F.C. van Wyk issued the customary public plea: witnesses who noticed anything between 5 and 9 December should come forward.
The request is more than routine. Klip Road Cemetery is squeezed between the roaring M5 freeway and Klip Road itself – visible to thousands, cared for by almost no one.
Funerals run all day, but the gates officially shut at 18:00. Within minutes, wire-cutters snip new gaps; by nightfall, vagrants, tik smokers and bronze-rose thieves drift between headstones until sunrise.
Neighbourhood-watch logs show 37 trespasser alerts in November alone.
Police now want dash-cam clips from south-bound M5 lanes, CCTV from three nearby petrol stations, and any snapshots snapped by families who buried loved ones the weekend Rudolph disappeared.
The Man Who Knew the Citi Golf
The handcuffed suspect is 42, lives on a smallholding in Schaapkraal three kilometres away, and is known to Rudolph’s relatives only as “Oom Boeta”, the backyard mechanic who tightened their Golf’s fan belt in October.
Officers stopped him at an R310 roadblock on Tuesday night; he was riding in the deceased’s Huawei P60, last alive at 20:04 on 5 December.
Leaked affidavit excerpts say he admits meeting Rudolph but swears he left her “safe and sound” at the corner of 5th Avenue and Victoria Road.
He has not yet entered a plea; Wynberg Magistrates’ Court locked him away until 18 December – ironically the date her friends had scheduled her baby-shower.
Grassy Park is now counting femicide number three in fourteen months.
Last October, teacher Gradeigh-Lee Africa was shot in the driver’s seat while waiting for her school gate to lift; in August, 16-year-old Aqeelah Damon was found strangled among Zeekoevlei reeds.
On Wednesday morning, activists from Women For Change tied white ribbons to the cemetery gates; by twilight the memorial had grown into a nursery of baby-grows, dummies and cardboard placards screaming “We are not your cemetery”.
Community-policing-forum chair Gavin Walbrugh says residents want a satellite police office inside the graveyard – an idea brass hats call “resource fantasy” but which the City’s safety directorate is technically modelling.
What the Soil, Rain and Phone Reveal
Pathologists bracket death between 20:00 on 5 December and 02:00 the next morning.
Sand grains on her clothing match the local Cape Flats dune layer, proving she was buried on the spot; absence of tyre or drag marks suggests she walked – or was carried – across the lawn.
Weather logs show 6.2 mm of rain fell before dawn on the 6th, enough to collapse the shallow roof of sand and explain why the grave looked oddly flat when council crews returned on Monday.
Her mother Bernadette created a WhatsApp squad “Find Shanice” within 60 minutes of the disappearance; by Thursday they had printed 4 000 posters and split into pairs that stapled them from Parkwood to Strandfontein.
A 15-year-old helper noticed one sheet torn down on Klip Road itself – sticky tape still fresh. Detectives later retrieved that identical poster crumpled in the suspect’s garage, a detail prosecutors will wield to argue planning.
South Africa’s crime bulletin for 2024/25 lists 1 216 women murdered, one every seven hours; 38 were pregnant, a category police internally label “double murders” even though the law does not recognise foeticide.
A draft “Shanice’s Law” tabled by the DA last month proposes a Schedule 6 offence for killing a pregnant woman, stripping judges of bail discretion.
Justice mandarins warn the change could swamp courts; activists reply that only a sledgehammer will crack the pattern.
Inside the Cemetery Economy and the Global Mirror
Klip Road opened in 1963 as a “buffer” burial strip between coloured Grassy Park and white Retreat; today it handles 22 interments a week, four times its 1980s load.
Freelance decorators haunt the gate selling AstroTurf, vinyl banners, LED lights and Bluetooth speakers that hymn gospel or Quranic verses – prices run R150 for a plastic-flower ring to R4 500 for an overnight marquee.
Several vendors recall a man matching “Oom Boeta’s” build asking which adult grave was scheduled for 6-7 December – intel that would let him mask freshly-dug earth.
Rudolph’s Huawei still held 94 % battery; its gyroscope logged 2 147 violent rotations from 19:55 to 20:04, then flat-lined – exactly the window a nearby DVR captures a glowing sneaker vaulting the eastern fence.
Across the ocean, Canadian media contrast the case with Wynnifer Hunter’s 2021 murder; her killer got two consecutive life sentences under Canada’s double-homicide rule – something South Africa still lacks.
On Wednesday night, locals launched “Walk Our Women Home”, escorting female commuters from the cemetery bus stop; the City donated 80 reflective bibs, a security firm provided two dog handlers.
Whether the patrol outlives the headlines is uncertain – similar schemes in Lavender Hill and Tafelsig dissolved once cameras left.
Unanswered questions linger: why did a heavily pregnant woman leave her hospital bag behind? Was she lured by an online scam promising cheap baby gear?
And how does a person vanish inside a web of three police stations, two private security firms and 1 200 radio-linked neighbourhood watchers?
This Friday, anthropologists will re-sift a five-metre radius for foetal bones scattered by the grader; toxicologists will test for scopolamine or benzos – drugs that erase memory and bruise-freeze muscle.
Until then, Rudolph’s family must plan a double funeral, compressing baby-shower balloons into coffin ribbons.
The cemetery office has waived burial fees for a plot beside her grandmother – an honour usually reserved for paupers but granted, officials admit, “because some weeks rewrite the rules”.
[{“question”: “What happened to Shanice Rudolph?”, “answer”: “Shanice Rudolph, a 23-year-old pregnant woman, vanished after a quick trip to the corner shop and was later found buried in Klip Road Cemetery. She and her unborn son died from brutal blunt-force trauma, likely caused by a concrete reinforcing rod. A backyard mechanic known as \”Oom Boeta\” has been arrested in connection with their murders.”},
{“question”: “Who is \”Oom Boeta\” and what is his connection to the case?”, “answer”: “\”Oom Boeta\” is a 42-year-old backyard mechanic who lives on a smallholding in Schaapkraal, about three kilometers from the cemetery. He was known to Shanice Rudolph’s family as he had previously worked on their car. He has been arrested in connection with the double murder and was found in possession of Rudolph’s Huawei P60 phone. He admits meeting Rudolph but claims he left her safe.”},
{“question”: “What was the cause of death for Shanice Rudolph and her unborn son?”, “answer”: “Both Shanice Rudolph and her unborn son tragically died from repeated blunt-force trauma. Investigators suspect a concrete reinforcing rod was the weapon used, as a bloodied one was found near the grave site.”},
{“question”: “Where was Shanice Rudolph found and what were the circumstances of the discovery?”, “answer”: “Shanice Rudolph was found buried in a shallow grave within Klip Road Cemetery. Her body was discovered four days after her disappearance when a municipal grader, smoothing a new access lane, nicked a patch of sand and exposed a human fingernail. She was found curled on her left side, with a neon-pink synthetic dread tangled in the grass above her.”},
{“question”: “What evidence points to \”Oom Boeta\” as a suspect?”, “answer”: “Evidence linking \”Oom Boeta\” to the crime includes his possession of Shanice Rudolph’s Huawei P60 phone, which was last active around the estimated time of death. Additionally, a poster from the ‘Find Shanice’ campaign was found crumpled in his garage, suggesting he may have tried to conceal information. His phone’s gyroscope also logged violent rotations during the critical time window.”},
{“question”: “What impact has this case had on the community and legal discussions?”, “answer”: “The case has ignited widespread fury, with activists demanding justice and stronger laws against violence towards pregnant women. Women For Change tied white ribbons and left baby-related items at the cemetery gates in protest. Community members have launched ‘Walk Our Women Home’ patrols. Legally, the case has highlighted the lack of legal recognition for foeticide in South Africa and has spurred discussions around a proposed ‘Shanice’s Law’ to make killing a pregnant woman a Schedule 6 offense, removing bail discretion.”}]
