Ghost Mountain: part two - Strong medicine

Summary

The Story – Ghost Mountain: Part Two – Strong Medicine
Hosted by Jane Flanagan | The Times
Release Date: June 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this gripping episode, Jane Flanagan takes listeners deep into the disturbing mysteries surrounding the disappearance of Lorna McSorley, a 71-year-old British tourist who vanished in rural South Africa. The investigation explores local beliefs in powerful traditional medicines known as "muti," some of which, according to witnesses and experts, involve the use of human body parts harvested in ritual killings. The episode uncovers the chilling patterns of disappearances, the cultural context of muti, and the disturbing lack of justice for affected families—all against the atmospheric backdrop of Ghost Mountain.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Setting and the Disappearance (00:59 - 06:18)

• Jane Flanagan paints a vivid picture of Mkuze's busy market, including macabre stalls selling animal bones and other ingredients for traditional remedies, highlighting the cultural significance of sangomas (traditional healers).
• The community's deep trust in sangomas is revealed:

  “Most of the locals in Makuze would trust a sangoma over a GP.” – Jane Flanagan (01:53)

• The case of Lorna McSorley:
  Lorna left for a walk in September 2025 and never returned. An extensive search turned up only her crumpled map. Francois Nell, head of security on the farm, expresses frustration:

  “I can’t believe with today’s technology we can’t find her. We can put devices in cars, we can go to Mars, but we can’t find Lorna.” – Francois Nell (04:14)

• Suspicion steers from ordinary crime to the sinister fringe of traditional medicine after failed ransom expectations.

2. A Pattern of Disappearances (04:49 - 06:56)

• There are repeated stories of people going missing in the area, with no effective police follow-up:

  “People got missing. People going to a place never returned. Small girls got abducted, little boys got abducted. Nothing was done about those cases.” – Francois Nell (04:59)

3. A Community Investigation and Phone Data Evidence (06:56 - 10:55)

• Francois Nell, distrusting the police, raises funds for a private investigation, leading to the use of "data dump"—mobile phone triangulation technology, revealing four unexplained devices in the area at the key time:

  “What is four numbers doing on that position where the map has been found?” – Francois Nell (09:05)

• All signs pointed to abduction and, notably, the absence of any financial motive: Lorna’s money and cards were untouched. Nell draws a chilling conclusion:

  “The value was in her and not in the goods she had ... she was being used for muti because the value in her body is much more worth than her credit card.” – Francois Nell (10:55)

4. What is Muti? (12:34 - 18:53)

• Jacob Sabelo Ntchegase, a Zulu cultural expert, explains the distinction between benign and “dark” muti. Ordinary muti, made from plants or animals, is widely used, but the rare, malevolent kind involves human body parts.
• The episode delves into the strong, even superstitious, local belief in the power of muti, especially around Mkuze:

  “If you go to places like the coups in those areas, traditional healers are the first call there for help.” – Jacob Ntchegase (14:28) “There’s muti that have to do with mixing the body parts...they will sell that belief that if you get these body parts will make you stronger, you know, make you rich...” – Jacob Ntchegase (16:01)

• “Muti killings” usually require that body parts, ideally, are harvested while the victim is alive and near water—a belief that horrifies outsiders but is woven into the area’s cultural fears and taboos. The body parts from white people or those with albinism are considered especially potent:

  “Certain people ... like people with albinism and white people, that the body parts can be used for muti to make one powerful or rich.” – Jacob Ntchegase (17:51)

5. Testimonies from the Ground: Patterns and Trauma (22:08 - 29:40)

• Francois Nell reconstructs the likely abduction, believing Lorna was watched, followed, and selected for a muti killing (22:08 - 25:54).
• Other community members share similarly harrowing stories:
  • Snelisa Kile Nkumbule recounts her grandfather’s disappearance (26:07), his remains found months later, minus several bones:

    “We found the remaining but there were not much. We got a skull and one bone ...” (27:06)

  • Nkla Kanipo Mayeni describes finding his aunt’s body, deliberately covered and missing an arm—a suspected muti killing (27:42 - 28:50).
• Fear is pervasive in the community:

  “We are also scared for our lives because now we are not able to go out at night because you never know when you are going to be go missing yourself.” – Local witness (29:03)

6. A Chilling Precedent: The Dinnis Case (30:22 - 36:41)

• Kate Andrews recounts her parents’ mysterious disappearance from their remote KZN farm in 2023.
  • The crime scene is untouched, suggesting abduction.
  • A confession: two former employees admit to murdering the couple and removing fingers and ears for a sangoma:

    “...they had been murdered, and their fingers and their ears had been removed for a sangoma, that they were promised 50,000 rand for the body parts and that they had not been paid.” – Kate Andrews (34:17)

  • Kate’s haunting observation of the investigation’s futility:

    “I've spoken to the police, and I am just being given the runaround. Nothing has been done for over a year. Nobody is looking for them.” (35:49)

  • An emotional conclusion:

    “We are left in limbo and it’s a horrible place to be…I just imagined that their last words were telling each other they love each other.” (36:42)

7. Why No Justice? Fear, Complicity, and Impunity (38:53 - End)

• Francois and Jane discuss how widespread and entrenched the fear of muti killings is, even among police:

  “From my experience and the bit of exposure that I've had to Muti killings, it is widely spread across South Africa. They are afraid.” – Francois Nell (38:53) “They're afraid that maybe those culprits will kill them.” – Nell (39:06)

• The episode ends with Jane Flanagan foreshadowing deeper investigations to come in the next installment.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Most of the locals in Makuze would trust a sangoma over a GP.” – Jane Flanagan (01:53)
• “I can’t believe with today’s technology we can’t find her. We can put devices in cars, we can go to Mars, but we can’t find Lorna.” – Francois Nell (04:14)
• “We think she’s been abducted. And we said enough is enough, we’re not going to allow that ... if we didn't do it as a private sector, Lona's case will be right in officer inquiry as a missing person ... and it will stay like that forever.” – Francois Nell (06:18)
• “The value was in her and not in the goods she had ... She was being used for muti because the value in her body is much more worth than her credit card.” – Francois Nell (10:55)
• “Certain people ... like people with albinism and white people, that the body parts can be used for muti to make one powerful or rich.” – Jacob Ntchegase (17:51)
• “We are also scared for our lives because now we are not able to go out at night because you never know when you are going to be go missing yourself.” – Local witness (29:03)
• “I've spoken to the police, and I am just being given the runaround. Nothing has been done for over a year. Nobody is looking for them.” – Kate Andrews (35:49)
• “They are afraid. ... They’re afraid that maybe those culprits will kill them.” – Francois Nell (38:53 - 39:06)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 0:59 – Episode warning and market scene introduction
• 4:06 – Lorna McSorley’s disappearance and failed search
• 6:56 – Community-initiated investigation, phone tracking
• 10:55 – The theory of muti as the motive
• 12:34 – What is muti? Zulu culture and beliefs explained
• 16:01 – Muti killings and ritual body part trade discussed
• 22:08 – Reconstructing the abduction; local rumors
• 25:25 – Interview: patterns of muti-related disappearances
• 26:07 – Testimonies from families of previous victims
• 30:22 – The Dinnis case: British couple vanishes
• 34:17 – Confession: the ritual motive and criminal confessions
• 35:49 – Systemic failure and family anguish
• 38:53 – Police and community fear; why cases go unsolved

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Episode Tone

The tone of the episode is grave, investigative, and empathetic—deeply respectful of its subjects and the gravity of their stories, yet unflinching in exposing the horrifying details and failures of local justice.

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In Summary

Episode two of Ghost Mountain draws a disturbing picture of life and death in rural South Africa, where the lines between traditional belief, criminal enterprise, and state neglect are blurred. Through local voices, expert testimony, and forensic storytelling, Jane Flanagan exposes the chilling reality behind the disappearances and the haunting suspicion that muti killing—a crime both rare and terrifying—is a plausible, if not proven, explanation for Lorna McSorley’s fate.

This installment leaves listeners with profound questions about cultural belief, community justice, and the many cases that may never find closure.

Transcript

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[Jane Flanagan]

This episode contains graphic descriptions of murder and violence and might not be suitable for all listeners. Mukuze, a small town in eastern South Africa, holds a bustling market every day. I'm here in March 2026 on my second trip to the town since the start of the year. Shoppers browse stalls piled with vegetables, gadgets, second hand clothes. Chicken is being grilled on a barbecue. Traders banter with each other as customers pick over their wares. So can you just tell me what you're selling and what it's used for? But one row of stalls is selling something quite different. I can see bones. Which bones are these from animals? Tiger. Where do you get tiger bones from? The range of stock is macabre. Between the rows of tree bark and herbs there are claws and beaks of birds, snake skins and bones of all sizes. Each one, the hawkers tell me, hold different medicinal powers as identified by a sangoma or traditional healer. Anyone who consumes them as remedies will feel the benefit. Some might offer a cure for an ailment. Others bring luck, strength or wealth. And do you have sangomas in Mukusi? Yes, many, many, many. Most of the locals in Makuze would trust a sangoma over a gp.

[Local Witness/Community Member]

If you have a problem, come to

[Francois Nell]

me and go in Sangoma and tell anything about you.

[Jane Flanagan]

What kind of problems do they solve?

[Francois Nell]

Many problems. If we come to go in Sangoma and tell anything about you and he'll

[Jane Flanagan]

have a But on the fringes of traditional medicine in South Africa, some healers don't restrict themselves to herbs and animal parts to have the most potent effect. Some will tell their clients they need ingredients for a potion that are much stronger, more sinister. It is this dark traditional medicine, I'm told, that could help me understand more about the disappearance of Lorna McSorley. Just down the road from this market In Makouse, in September 2025, the 71 year old British tourist set off for a walk through the sugarcane fields beneath Ghost Mountain and vanished.

[Francois Nell]

She's gone without a trace. Nobody know where she is.

[Jane Flanagan]

A week long search involving planes, dogs, drones and sp scores of volunteers found no sign of Lorna.

[Francois Nell]

I can't believe with today's technology we can't find her. We can put devices in cars, we can go to Mars, we can do anything, but we can't find Lorna.

[Jane Flanagan]

But there are local suspicions about what might have happened to Lorna. Things that at first I couldn't believe.

[Francois Nell]

They are very afraid of this tour doctors, you know, this witchcraft. And they told me about four or five days after, if you haven't found something by now, you will never find it.

[Jane Flanagan]

As I started digging, I heard of a pattern of other cases around Makuze which might hold the answer.

[Francois Nell]

People got missing, people going to a place never returned. Small girls got abducted, little boys got abducted. Nothing was done about that cases.

[Jane Flanagan]

I'm jane flanagan and from the times and Sunday times, this is ghost mountain. Episode 2 strong medicine. In early October 2025, South African police February formally ended the active search for Lorna MacSorely. A week long hunt, including drones, boats and dogs scouring miles of farms and waterways turned up nothing apart from the maps she'd been carrying. Found crumpled at the side of a track. It was now a missing persons case, something that rarely gets solved in this part of South Africa. But some locals, like Francois Nell, who head security the farm where she disappeared, continued to hunt for Lorna. And he had his own theory about

[Francois Nell]

what had happened when we didn't find her. And we all came to the conclusion, okay, we think she's been abducted. And we said enough is enough, we're not going to allow that. We knew this thing is not going to go anywhere because of previous cases where people got missing. It went up in the dustbin. That's why I said I will take this thing personally and find out where she is. Because we must understand if we didn't do it as a private sector, Lona's case will be right in officer inquiry as a missing person tourists and it will stay like that forever.

[Jane Flanagan]

South Africa has a notoriously high rate of violent crime. Murders, kidnappings and robberies are rife. There are 50 odd kidnappings a day across the country. According to police figures, only a tiny fraction of those result in arrests and prosecutions. So Francois took matters into his own hands rather than rely on a police force few locals had much faith in. He raised funds from local businesses to hire a private investigator. Together, they set out to establish who else had been in the area when Lorna disappeared.

[Francois Nell]

We had a map. We had a map area and no clue. So I thought, let me go to that area and let's do a data dump.

[Jane Flanagan]

By data dump or data dump as we pronounce it in the uk. Francois means the phone tracking technology often used by police in investigations. Every mobile device with a signal communicates with local phone towers, logging its location data. That data is stored by the network and can be retrieved by investigators, even if the phone itself is never found. Lorna was not carrying a phone when she went missing. But the data dump could reveal what other phones were in the same area around that time.

[Francois Nell]

What we did is we estimated the timeline. We said from, let's say, three to five.

[Jane Flanagan]

This was the period after Lorna was last seen, but before she was reported missing. They scoured the data for other phones in the area close to where Lorna's map was found.

[Francois Nell]

There was activities in that area in the radius of 50 meters where the map was found. That four numbers was there.

[Jane Flanagan]

Four devices, potentially four people. One of them, at the very least, must have been there when Lorna went missing.

[Francois Nell]

What is four numbers doing on that position where the map has been found?

[Jane Flanagan]

Those people had no reason to be there.

[Francois Nell]

Phone was closed, There was nobody here. So what do they want? When we got the numbers, we did a history on that numbers now. So you want to see where they went to and where they come from.

[Jane Flanagan]

Once Francois had identified movement in the area where Lorna was last seen, he extended the search area and timeline to see where those devices had come from. For him, the pattern pointed to one conclusion. An abduction. The phones arrived from outside the farm, converge close to the spot where her map was found, then leave.

[Francois Nell]

Because of that, I said, this lady is not here anymore. She's been abducted. Let's start doing this investigation. But then the funds. The funds ended. So that's just why we couldn't we hand everything over to the South African

[Jane Flanagan]

police once the community fund had run dry? To continue the private investigation, Francois had little choice but to give his findings to a police force he had no confidence would finish the job. But so many questions still remained. If Lorna had been abducted, then for what? In South Africa, kidnappings are for financial gain. Relatives or a business will typically receive a ransom demand from the captors. Sometimes victims are taken with their bank cards and forced to withdraw money from ATMs or buy goods until their accounts are drained. But that had not happened in Lorna's case.

[Francois Nell]

She had money, she had a credit card. She had everything on her. And when her credit card didn't have any movements on, that is when we decided these people didn't need money. They not after money. That is why I said I think the value was in her and not in the goods she had. That is why we came to the conclusion she was being used for muti because the value in her body is much more worth than her credit card.

[Jane Flanagan]

Francois is making what sounds like an extraordinary claim. Muti is the Zulu word for medicine, the traditional remedies of the type that I saw for sale in the local market. Muti is mostly benign, made from plants or roots. But there is a malevolent kind. A tiny minority of sangomas, or healers, are prepared to use human body parts for what they claim are the most powerful ceremonies and remedies. Francois was adamant that the only explanation for Lorna vanishing was this kind of dark mootie. The suspicious movement of devices did point to an abduction, but for her body parts, it was a grotesque explanation. But I'm not from here. I had to keep an open mind. I needed to find out more about muti and how it is used in this area.

[Aramco Narrator]

If there is death in your family in Zulu culture, you need to be cleansed of the spirit of the dead person. You will then have to kill an animal, a goat, for instance.

[Jane Flanagan]

Jacob Sabelo Ntchegase is an expert in the Zulu language and culture. He's from a town called Pongola, about a 40 minute drive north of Ghost Mountain. Jacob is explaining to me how muti is used and revered here in the Zulu heartland.

[Aramco Narrator]

And then they will take the inside of a goat. They will mix it with particular roots, certain roots and leaves for you to be cleansed of the spirit of the dead person. That's the muti, which is, I think it will be a light muti.

[Jane Flanagan]

Muti comes in different forms. It's typically mixed from certain plants or animal parts. Its uses can be ceremonial or as cures for headaches, upset stomachs or even emotional pain.

[Aramco Narrator]

And also there are people believe that maybe there is a woman that I love and the woman doesn't love me because. Because the woman is in love with somebody else. Inyanga will say to you, okay, I am going to mix muti for you, that you must go maybe bath in and then, or maybe have particular roots that when you go to speak to the woman, you must chew it as you speak to that particular Woman and the old woman would fall in love with. Imagine that stupid thing. But that's muti.

[Jane Flanagan]

I've lived in South Africa for two decades, so I'm aware muti is part of the culture here. But nearly 2,000 kilometers from my home in Cape Town, in the rural communities around Mukuse, it seems the use and talk of muti dominates.

[Aramco Narrator]

KwaZulu Natalie is dominated by the Zulus, people who are very proud of their culture. Beliefs like in muti and stuff like that is very strong amongst them, especially the predominantly rural ones. For instance, if you go to places like the coups in those areas, traditional healers are the first call there for help. But yes, there are some people, certain sections of the population, you have headache, they will say, you say, I've been to the doctor, you're wasting your money, go to your doctor. There is traditional healer so and so who can cure this chronic headache and stuff like that. Let me make example with myself. For instance, I have a 22 year old boy. My son is autistic. He was born with autism. There are certain members of my family and some people in the community who are saying, take this child to traditional healers. They will cure this thing. So there are people who strongly believe they will push you.

[Jane Flanagan]

These days, the trade in muti has flourished so much that many healers have become wealthy businessmen. But Jacob, the Zulu cultural expert, confirms what Francois told me. There's another appalling side to this tradition.

[Aramco Narrator]

Then there's muti that have to do with mixing the body parts, private parts. You find someone who has disappeared for years, the body is found and some bushes thrown away, and then body parts are missing. Traditional healers, you know, they will sell that belief that if you get these body parts will make you stronger, you know, make you rich and all those kind of things.

[Jane Flanagan]

For the most potent concoctions, a muti killing is required. In which organs and body parts are harvested from a living victim in a ritual that ideally takes place beside a water source. Such body parts are believed to be imbued with special powers far beyond anything available from plants or animals. Some claim human muti can make you invincible.

[Aramco Narrator]

There is muti that has been used to make them stronger. They are not. Their powers are extraordinary powers actually because of muti. That's why other people, for instance, even when you take out the gun, you want to shoot them because they feel that they are muti protected. And those muti have to do maybe with body parts, they'll say, go ahead, shoot, go ahead, shoot. Because the belief is that, you know, bullets won't kill them. There are people who strongly believe in that. People will sell their cows. They will sell, yeah, so that they can get that moot. Because that moot is not cheap. It's very expensive. You know, moot that do with body parts.

[Jane Flanagan]

I've spoken to traditional healers who insist that this is a very rare phenomenon. But Jacob suggests the belief in this type of strong muti is entrenched in the area where Lorna disappeared.

[Aramco Narrator]

So I know in that part of the world, in northern Zulu and especially around MKU's issues of muti killing, trading in body parts, it's actually very, very, very strong. There is a strong belief in that. So there's always been a problem. For instance, not very far from my hometown, it used to be the body parts that was used more commonly at the time was the head. You'll find people beheaded. So I remember my grandmother would caution us at night, be careful. People are looking for your heads. And these heads, they use them for mooty. For me, it is a plausible explanation that the disappearance of people has to do with trading in body parts based on a belief that certain people, for instance, like people with albinism and white people, that the body parts can be used for muti to make one powerful or rich.

[Jane Flanagan]

Some traditional healers claim that muti, or charms taken from people with albinism, can bring wealth or good fortune. An entire body can reportedly be worth thousands of pounds. Lorna Macsorley was of course, a white woman in her 70s. She was lost and without water, alone in the bush. After the break, I follow the trail of other disappearances around Makouse, and the pieces start falling into place.

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[Jane Flanagan]

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[Francois Nell]

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[Local Witness/Community Member]

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[Jane Flanagan]

Walking in the shadow of Ghost Mountain, it's easy to get lost. The sugarcane closes in around you. The fields are vast and dense, visibility down to a few meters in any direction. When I visited in January, the heat and humidity were draining the crops and ditches along the route Lorna took would have been easy places to hide or to watch and wait. Where do you think they were watching her from?

[Francois Nell]

I think they were maybe at the back.

[Jane Flanagan]

Francois Nell is the man who traced the phones entering and leaving this area at the time when Lorna disappeared. Disappeared? He thinks it paints a clear picture. Lorna was abducted. He wants to show me how he thinks that abduction played out, where those who took her might have been hiding. While Lorna was asking for directions from Kurs Prinsloo, the local farmer who had the last confirmed sighting of her.

[Francois Nell]

They were at the back, this side, and maybe when she when she was talking to Kwis, they regrouped and they were hanging back. No vehicles, just a spotter. This is my fury. She came down here, she saw them here and she thought, oh, everybody's friendly. Oh, good day, I'm lost. And they said, hey, I know how they were. And they took the map, searching the grass, and then they kept her here. Maybe they went into the bush with her phoned the transport. They came pick her up here.

[Local Witness/Community Member]

Out.

[Jane Flanagan]

Francois is convinced that Lorna was a victim of a muti killing. He tells me that these crimes require a group working together. A sangoma will be looking for strong muti for a wealthy client who wants to become rich or powerful. Maybe. He then puts out an order to his network of scouts for the body part necessary for the ritual. His contacts will identify a victim and kill them in a special ceremony near a water source.

[Francois Nell]

That is exactly what happened to her. Somebody knew she went out of that hotel. What we know there's a list. There's a market for. For, let's say a white woman. What they do is they wait for the right time. Maybe you will walk here. You could have be the first one today. Maybe example walking here, taking pictures. Hey, they will start talking to each other. We saw a white lady going out of the gate of Ghost Mountain or wherever. She's walking alone.

[Local Witness/Community Member]

Come.

[Francois Nell]

They have a market for everybody. There's a market for you right now as you sit here. They're just waiting for the right time to take you.

[Jane Flanagan]

I almost always travel alone on my reporting trips across South Africa and other countries. Francois shakes his head at the idea that I've come to Makouse on my own. And over the years, when you've lived here, how many people have been disappeared and thought to have been trafficked into the muti industry?

[Francois Nell]

According to sources, we have nine alleged bodies they found through the years with scars of mutimers hands been removed, private parts been cut off years. And that cases never surfaced. Just went to the dark side.

[Jane Flanagan]

To find out whether the Mooty theory being linked to Lorna's case had any substance. I wanted to track down some of the families of those victims. I did not have to look far

[Snelisa Kile Nkumbule]

with the family of Gambula. We have one person who went missing. That was our grandfather who went missing on2024 for February.

[Jane Flanagan]

This is Snelisa Kile Nkumbule. She lives with her mother and sister on the lower slopes of Ghost Mountain, a couple of hours walk from Mukuse. A community leader who heard I was looking into disappearances in the area has brought me to meet her. She told me her grandfather, who was in his 60s, vanished overnight from the family compound in February 2024. His remains were found miles away five months later.

[Snelisa Kile Nkumbule]

We searched for him. Police helped us to look for him, but we couldn't find him until it was July.

[Jane Flanagan]

She points down the hill to the hut he was taken from by Mooty hunters, she tells me.

[Snelisa Kile Nkumbule]

We found the remaining but there were not much. We got a skull and one bone which we don't know which part of it was.

[Jane Flanagan]

And what do you think happened to him?

[Snelisa Kile Nkumbule]

I think my grandfather was kidnapped and killed and they took some of his body parts. That's what I think.

[Local Witness/Community Member]

She would usually meet me by the gate when I bring the food for her. But that day when I came by later, I did not see her.

[Jane Flanagan]

This is Nkla Kanipo mayeni. He's a 27 year old student. He lives about three miles from where the young girl's grandfather was taken. He's telling me about what happened to his aunt and showing me around the homestead where she lived.

[Local Witness/Community Member]

So I started to look around and went around the house and I saw a jacket by the fence and I found she was laid down and covered with the wood she would use to cook with and a metal sheet. That's how I found her that day.

[Jane Flanagan]

So you found a body but it was covered in wood and a corrugated iron sheet like someone was hiding the body?

[Local Witness/Community Member]

Yes. When the police came by and looked at the body, they had found that the arm was missing. That missing arm might have been used as a means of ritualism.

[Jane Flanagan]

So you think your aunt was killed, was a Muti killing victim?

[Local Witness/Community Member]

Yes ma'.

[Jane Flanagan]

Am. I was also given the phone number of the mother whose child was taken. In a brief call she refused to say what happened. I'm afraid of these people, she told me and hung up.

[Local Witness/Community Member]

We are also scared for our lives because now we are not able to go out at night because you never know when you are going to be go missing yourself.

[Jane Flanagan]

I also heard a real frustration about the lack of police action.

[Snelisa Kile Nkumbule]

The community had enough. Maybe we could get some justice or maybe protection, I don't know. But the police and the guard, maybe the government maybe could take us serious and take these people's lives serious because we are losing here.

[Jane Flanagan]

Without proper police investigations, the suggestions that these are all mutie murders remain speculation. There's nothing that proves that these are victims who have been killed to order. But then I was reminded of a story I'd seen reported in the South African media a few years back. It's a case that was able to go much further in making a link between a disappearance and mooty two British citizens who'd been living in KwaZulu Natal Province for decades before they vanished into thin air.

[Kate Andrews]

So I was in Cape Town, I was at home and it was a Sunday afternoon and I received a phone call from my daughter who lives up in Mo river. And she said to me, I don't mean to worry you, but I think Granny and granddad have gone missing.

[Jane Flanagan]

Kate Andrews is British, but she's been living in South Africa for decades. Her parents, Anthony and Julian Dinnis, were retired farmers in their 70s and originally from Kent. They had moved in the early 90s to farm in Moy River, a few hundred miles from Makouse. It was a remote place but they loved it. After giving up their large farm, they kept a few livestock and tended to their vegetable patch until one morning in August 2023 when Kate, who lives on the other side of South Africa near Cape Town, received that call from her own daughter to say they had disappeared.

[Kate Andrews]

So she said to me the next move was they were going to go to the house and break into the house to see what is going on.

[Jane Flanagan]

When Kate's daughter arrived, she was met with an eerie scene.

[Kate Andrews]

My daughter said to me, it was like aliens had just come and just taken them. And I said to her, you can't. What do you mean? Surely there's something. And she said, no, there's nothing. The plates were still there, the glasses of oros were still there with some of it had some oros still in it, serviettes were still there. I could see what meal they'd eaten and the leftover vegetables were still in the pot on the stove. It was exactly as if they'd been there one minute and not there the next. It was so surreal.

[Jane Flanagan]

It was this detail of their sudden disappearance that sounded so much like the case of Lorna McSorley.

[Kate Andrews]

The police did a full search of obviously of the property they bought out, Search and rescue. They took the docks, they searched dams, they searched farm buildings, they, they went all over and there was absolutely no indication whatsoever of my parents. Then we said, well, my parents were taken off of the property. We assumed it would take more than one person because they would fight back no matter what.

[Jane Flanagan]

There was nothing for a week until the family received a WhatsApp from Gillian Dinnis phone number demanding 2 million rands, which is about £90,000.

[Kate Andrews]

So we were corresponding on WhatsApp in Zulu while using Google Translate and trying to get some sort of proof of life, which they never gave.

[Jane Flanagan]

But back at her parents farmhouse, Kate spotted a note in her father's diary which might offer a clue to who had taken them. Each of Tony Dinnis's diary entries meticulously detailed their daily life. What they had eaten, worked on, who they had seen, and a couple of Days before he and Gillian were reported missing, Tony recorded a particular visit.

[Kate Andrews]

On the Friday the gardener had been there. And he would mention this gardener by name. I said to the police, okay, listen, these are the last people that saw my parents. There's a gardener here. This is his name. You need to talk to him. He was the last person there that saw them.

[Jane Flanagan]

The police dithered, but after two weeks, they did find the gardener and took him in for questioning. And then, soon after, a second man who had also worked for the old couple in custody, the two men made an extraordinary confession.

[Kate Andrews]

It was a very short confession to say that he had been a party to taking my parents, that they had been murdered, and that their fingers and their ears had been removed for a sangoma, that they were promised 50,000 rand for the body parts and that they had not been paid. They did not go into detail as to whether they removed the body parts while my parents were alive or dead. What I do know from my own research that under normal. I say normal circumstances, nothing about this is normal. But in the circumstances of taking body parts for Muti, tradition dictates that the person must still be alive, and it should be done near running water. That is what I read on the confession.

[Jane Flanagan]

They said the ransom demand was sent after the sangoma, the traditional healer who had taken the Muti, failed to pay them. Their confession was accepted by the police. In fact, Kate says no police officer had ever disputed it. But that did not mean that justice was served. The pair were arrested, charged, and appeared in court, but the charges were later withdrawn, the police spokesman saying it was due to insufficient evidence. There was no trial, there was no prosecution. They're just back in the area where your parents were living.

[Kate Andrews]

Yes, one lives fairly close to where my parents lived. The other one, I'm not sure where he stays. It blows my mind, given what we found, what they admitted to, the information that they knew. For example, one of the suspects said he told the police where they left my father's wallet, and that was exactly where they left the wallet. You wouldn't know that if you weren't part of this. I've spoken to the police, and I am just being given the runaround. Nothing has been done for over a year. Nobody is looking for them. Nobody's attempting to look for them. It's. It just. It's just very, very distressing and very upsetting, not only to. To my family and I, but to the other people in the area as well, because my parents were well liked, and we have not even recovered their remains. We cannot even give them a decent burial.

[Jane Flanagan]

We.

[Kate Andrews]

We are left in limbo and it's a horrible place to be. I do know that those last moments, even as they left their house, would have been absolute terror. And that they would have to recognize the fact that they weren't getting out of this. And I just imagined that their last words were telling each other they love each other.

[Jane Flanagan]

During one of my research trips to KwaZulu Natal for this series, I traveled to the remote spot where the Dynasses had lived. I wanted to see if I could get some more information about why the case fell down. An officer agreed to see me, but later changed his mind. I'd reached a dead end. Sitting in my hire car near where they disappeared, I reread the media reports of their self confessed killer's court appearances before they were released back into this area. I now really wanted to go home. I'd always heard that Mutie killings were extremely rare, maybe a handful a year. But the confessions described the trade in human body parts with a chilling matter of factness. Bodies could be stolen, rather like a car or an animal, cut up and sold. And some parts fetching more than others. The rumors in makuzee that Lorna McSorley had been taken by Mootie hunters no longer seemed so far fetched. And if that was the case, she would be the third British person in just two years to have suffered that fate in this province of South Africa. And digging further, I've been able to find evidence that Lorna was likely to have been tracked from early on in her walk. And I might be able to understand why the police are doing nothing. I think there's a general belief that

[Francois Nell]

it would be far off in a rural place. But from my experience and the bit

[Jane Flanagan]

of exposure that I've had to Muti

[Francois Nell]

killings, it is widely spread across South Africa. They are afraid.

[Jane Flanagan]

They're afraid of the mutiny.

[Local Witness/Community Member]

Yeah.

[Francois Nell]

And they're afraid that maybe those culprits will kill them.

[Jane Flanagan]

That's next time from the Times and Sunday Times. This is Ghost Mountain, a series for the story. I'm your host, Jane Flanagan. The producer is Harry Stott. The executive producers are Taryn Seagull and Kate Lambe. Sound design and composition is by Mao Lisetto. We'll be back tomorrow with episode three of Ghost Mountain.

[Francois Nell]

Foreign.

[Aramco Narrator 2]

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[Jane Flanagan]

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[Advertisement Voice]

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