The tattoos that helped cops identify Yolanda Botes

Matching tattoos of her and her husband's names helped police identify Yolandi Botes, whose body was chopped up and thrown into the Vaal River in a bizarre murder that has left investigators mystified.

The 35-year-old disappeared on April 26 after travelling from George Airport to OR Tambo International Airport to visit her three children from a previous marriage.

A week later, a father and son on a fishing trip stumbled across one of her body parts in the river, near Villiers in the Free State.

"The boy walked around and saw something in the water that looked like part of a body," said police spokesperson Brig Motantsi Makhele. "The linkage could be made by a tattoo she had. It was confirmed that the body is that of Yolandi Botes."

Her husband, Wietzue, told the Sunday Times this week that police identified her by the tattoo on her arm with his name and their wedding date: September 11 2019.

"I have the exact same one on my arm with her name and our wedding date.

"When I found out about her murder I was devastated and hurt. I am struggling to sleep and eat.

"Yolandi was the type of person who would show her love and appreciation. She had this thing; she could not sleep if I didn't hold her at night.

"If I was tired or not, I had to lay down with her and hold her. This is one of the biggest reasons I am struggling to sleep.

"I miss her sense of humour and everything about her. It's extremely difficult, I miss my wife."

A day before Yolandi's body was found about 125km away, a receptionist at a Kempton Park guesthouse near OR Tambo airport made her own gruesome discovery. As she opened up on the morning of May 3, she walked into an empty but blood-smeared room. Here investigators would later find a knife under a mattress, and a chair, bizarrely wrapped in a blanket, in the shower cubicle.

Now police and private investigator Mike Bolhuis's Specialised Security Services (SSS), hired by the Botes family, are trying to piece together what happened in the week Yolandi went missing and whether there is a link between her murder and the blood-soaked guesthouse room.

"The owner said that if you want to know more about the incident then you must speak to the police. We are not giving comment," the Oceanic Lodge receptionist told the Sunday Times this week from behind her desk at the guesthouse, where clients can book rooms by the hour and the reception area is behind burglar bars.

Retracing Yolandi's last steps, SSS lead investigator Odette van Staden said she had hailed an Uber to take her from OR Tambo to Edenvale. After the Uber dropped her off at a shopping centre, she was seen getting into another vehicle. "She got willingly into another car."

Wietzue confirmed her flight had landed at about 10am. Her last live location was picked up at 11.40am that day in Edenvale.

Investigators are hoping the results of DNA tests will shed light on whether the guesthouse crime scene is linked to Yolandi's killing. It could take up to two weeks for the DNA results to come back from the lab.

Kobus Meyer, the CEO of private security company Private & Confidential Security Services, which is contracted by the lodge, was one of the first on the scene. "There was blood all over. One of our members noticed a chair covered in a blanket in the shower."

Paramedics were alerted but could not find a body.

"The staff at the lodge said the person who rented the room booked it in the early morning hours and he [left] the next morning without checking out. The keys were left inside the door," said Meyer.

Wietzue said he knew something was wrong when he could not get hold of his wife.

"I was worried, because I know what happens in Johannesburg with all the crime. The crime was one of the main reasons we had moved to the Western Cape."

He said it was unlike Yolandi to "just go silent".

"She would always keep in contact with everyone. If her phone died, she would even borrow a stranger's phone to call you. She will make a plan to contact you if it's the case.

"When her phone died and we couldn't get hold of her, we knew that something was wrong."

Wietzue said it was expensive for Botes to visit her three children, aged 17, 15 and 12, in Johannesburg. "She loved her children and always made an effort to try and see them. At times there wasn't any money but we made a plan so that she could go see them."

For her recent trip, she had planned to do arts and crafts with her children, Wietzue said. "She wanted each child to make something special as a memory. She absolutely loved making memories."