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- The trial of David van Boven and Tasliem Ambrose has been postponed.
- They are accused of the murder of Jesse Hess and her grandfather, Chris Lategan.
- Hess and Lategan were found dead in their Parow home on 30 August 2019.
Disgruntled mumbling and the shaking of heads were the scenes from the gallery at the Western Cape High Court on Monday, where the murder trial of the two men accused of killing teenager Jesse Hess and her grandfather, Chris Lategan, was postponed until 2022.
Hess, an aspiring pastor and first year University of the Western Cape theology student, and Lategan, 85, were found dead in their home in Parow on 30 August 2019.
Their bodies were found when residents kicked down the door of their flat after seeing a motionless Lategan through the bathroom window.
Hess' aunt, Sandy, had asked the neighbours to check when she couldn't reach them by phone.
They are believed to have been strangled during a robbery, in which a TV set, two cellphones and Hess' backpack were stolen.
READ | Jesse Hess' aunt: 'You don't get over it, you just learn to live with it'
Hess' second cousin, David van Boven, and Tasliem Ambrose, who lived in the same road as Van Boven in Hanover Park, were arrested three months later.
Sandy had, from the start, maintained their killers had been known to them because there was no sign of forced entry.
The gallery was filled with family and loved ones, who were visibly disappointed that the trial would only be heard next year.
The case was one of five postponed to various dates.
Last month, Judge President John Hlophe instructed the postponement of all new criminal cases to be heard in the Western Cape High Court for this term.
At the time, he said this was because of a heavy caseload.
