Parents Who Destroyed Girl’s Body: “She’s Just Playing Dead Again”
On August 9th, 2013, Louisa Cornelius Susanna Vurva was born in Westonaria, South Africa, to parents Louisa and Christo. She was named after her mother, but her family referred to her as Poppy or Doll, which is a term of endearment in Afrikaans. And Poppy did look like a doll; she soon grew to be a blond-haired, blue-eyed toddler. At the time of our story, Poppy was just 3 years old.
Now, her mother, the elder Louisa, had a rough childhood. Her biological father died in 1984, around the time that she was 10 or 11 years old. Her mother soon remarried, and Louisa claimed that her stepfather was just terrible. She said that he was not only emotionally and physically abusive, but he allegedly assaulted her as well. She said he spent years making her feel absolutely worthless. By the time Louisa was 18, she was looking for any way out of that situation. She married her first husband, Freddy L., shortly after turning 18. They had two children, Yaku and Marlé, who were about 4 years apart. Now, unfortunately for Louisa, Freddy wasn’t much better than her stepfather. Eventually, her mother, Susan, helped her escape this dangerous relationship.
It was after leaving Freddy that Louisa met a diesel mechanic named Christo. The couple were soon married and went on to live in Westonaria, South Africa. They first had a son named Johan, and then later Poppy. Based on the timeline, our best guess is that Poppy and her brother are about 2 years apart in age. Fortunately, this marriage also did not last. Poppy was born in August of 2013. In 2014, Louisa was beginning divorce proceedings. She claimed that Christo was also abusive and got a restraining order against him. It made it very hard for Christo to have visitation with his children; the next two years, he only had three supervised visits with Poppy and her brother. However, he was allowed a weekly phone call every Sunday. Most of these phone calls were recorded. Many of these recordings that include Poppy singing to her father have made it into the public domain. Christo’s parents were allowed occasional visitation with the two young children.
After leaving Christo, Louisa moved about 500 kilometers from Westonaria to Orania, which means “Orange” in Afrikaans. Orania is a town located on the Orange River in the Northern Cape of South Africa. It is not a large town; according to reports, there were only 2,066 residents living in Orania in 2020. However, their town has experienced substantial growth in the time between 2014 and 2020, and we estimate there were just over 1,000 residents in Orania at the time that Louisa moved there. Although this is not a major plot point in our story, I feel like we have to address the controversy surrounding Orania, which is an all-white town in South Africa. It’s populated by the Afrikaner people, who are descendants of Dutch settlers who colonized the region, first arriving at the Cape of Good Hope in 1652. Afrikaners dominated South Africa’s politics, as well as the country’s commercial agricultural sector, up until 1994. Orania has been criticized for its separatist ideals, with many feeling like they’re trying to revive apartheid. According to their current leader, Carel Boshoff IV, their goal is to preserve Afrikaner culture: “Our people, with a distinct identity which goes back for at least 300 years in Africa, and we view the particular identity that we have and that we represent as something of value.” I obviously live in the States, and I’m no expert in South African politics or the nuances of living there. My knowledge of South African culture is very limited, so if you live in South Africa, let us know your thoughts on Orania in the comments.
In 2014, Louisa moved to Orania and was welcomed by the local members of the Dutch Reformed Church. There she met Heidi Smith, a social worker who was tasked with getting Louisa settled into the community. She helped place Louisa’s children in childcare, got her a job at a local supermarket, and secured housing for her. She also assisted Louisa in completing her divorce proceedings against Christo. Heidi initially noted that Poppy and her brother seemed fairly typical. By this point, Marlé was 14 years old, and it quickly became clear that she was the primary caregiver of the two younger children. She did all of the housework, including cooking and cleaning. The children even called her “mommy” on occasion. This fact was noted in the documentation that Heidi was keeping; however, no one seemed to question this dynamic. It was simply noted that this arrangement seemed to be a good thing because Marlé was more calm than Louisa and did a better job parenting the young children.
In 2015, Kobus Koekemoer moved to Orania and was also offered a job at the local supermarket. This is where he and Louisa met. Kobus also had a string of broken marriages behind him. We know that he was married at least twice before Louisa and also had at least one child from each marriage. He later said that he had no idea where his oldest child was; however, he did pay monthly child support payments for the child from his second marriage. Louisa and Kobus quickly struck up a romantic relationship. After dating for just a few months, they were engaged and soon moved in together. They later married on November 14th, 2015. The very next day, Marlé was abruptly kicked out of the family home. She was put on a bus and sent to live with her father several hundred kilometers away in the Eastern Cape. This sudden change in family dynamics was very traumatizing to Poppy and her brother Johan. Marlé had essentially been acting as their mother. She was ripped from their lives and replaced with a man who would soon prove to be the exact opposite of the safe, consistent caregiver that Marlé had been.
Almost immediately after Louisa and Kobus were married, Louisa quit her job at the supermarket. At this point, the staff at the daycare had begun noticing some concerning signs of abuse in Johan. Workers noted that whenever Kobus and Louisa came to pick up the children, the boy would run and hide in the bathroom. Louisa had warned the staff of her son’s alleged “outbursts,” as she referred to them, and staff found this confusing, as the only thing they ever saw was his sweet and loving nature. When they reported back that they were having no trouble with Johan being aggressive, Kobus accused the staff of drugging him into compliance. Another concerning sign was that the children often showed up in clothing that was either clearly not theirs or totally inappropriate for the weather. On one occasion in the hot summer months, Johan showed up in a very thick winter jacket. When the teachers tried to suggest that he take it off, he became defensive and scared, saying that Kobus and Louisa would be mad if he removed it. We can only assume now that this jacket was probably hiding bruises or other injuries.
Not long after Louisa and Kobus were married, Louisa stopped bringing Johan to daycare. However, Poppy continued to go regularly. The assumption was that Poppy remained in daycare due to her limited vocabulary, making it less likely that she was going to spill the beans on what was going on at home. However, even with her inability to verbalize how she was being harmed, her body told the story anyway. Poppy began going to daycare with bruises in strange places, such as her earlobes and her feet. At first, this was not overly concerning, but the staff soon noticed that before her bruises healed, new ones were popping up. But of course, as we often hear in those cases, Kobus and Louisa blamed all of these injuries on rough play or Poppy’s own clumsiness. They also blamed Poppy’s brother, who they were continuing to try to cast in a violent light. Now, if you’ve ever done mandated reporter training, you know that one of the things always noted as a sign of abuse is bruising on a child’s ears. There is no natural way that children end up with bruising on their ears when they’re playing, unlike the very common bruising that you see when children fall on their knees when they’re playing or running.
The workers at the daycare were not the only ones noticing that something was amiss in the household. While living in Orania, they had a neighbor named Yaku Roux. Yaku later testified that he was constantly hearing signs that the household was more than just dysfunctional. Through the walls, he regularly heard both adults belittling the kids; he heard them yelling and swearing at them after any small offense. He told authorities that once, he heard the adults screaming at Poppy for soiling her bed, and then heard anguished cries from the young girl. He said her screams were “indescribable,” in his own words. Several days later, the neighbor saw Poppy returning home with a cast on her leg. He noted that during the time that Poppy’s broken leg was healing, the adults did not offer her any assistance whatsoever. She was made to climb in and out of their truck independently and carry her own suitcase. Yaku also noted that Poppy often woke up in the middle of the night screaming from nightmares; he said she would cry for 20 to 30 minutes. He also noted that the children always seemed solemn when the parents were there, but he sometimes saw the occasional smile when the children were alone.
On another occasion, Yaku noted that after an evening of screaming from the adults, he heard a large thump followed by screams of pain from Poppy. The next day, he saw her with a massive bruise on her head, and she was cradling her arm to her chest. Yaku approached Kobus to ask what had happened. Kobus went into a rage and stormed off without giving any sort of explanation. However, Louisa told Yaku that Poppy had simply fallen down the stairs. Yaku also spoke of a disturbing incident where Poppy and Johan were sitting on the steps to their house while Kobus was watering their garden. Their stepfather suddenly turned the hose on the children and soaked them with freezing cold water. He started yelling at them for making alleged inappropriate advances toward each other. According to the neighbor, it was winter, and the children cried bitterly and said that they were cold. Yaku said Louisa then came out the door and yelled at the children—and mind you, these are her words—”You wanted to F*** each other.” Yaku said he would never forget those words. They were then made to stand naked in the bitter cold yard that day until they dried. Keep in mind, these children were about 3 and 5 years old at the time.
Yaku reported these things to the social workers in Orania. Due to the mandated reporter laws, the social workers were then obligated to investigate these allegations and make a police report. Unfortunately, being a small town, Orania did not have its own police force. Protocol was to report incidents to the nearest police station in Hopetown, about 40 km away. However, no reports of abuse were ever made to the Hopetown police regarding the children. Yaku said he did not report to the police himself, as Orania citizens faced expulsion from the town if they asked for help from outsiders. After the reports from Yaku and the staff at the daycare, a meeting was called between social workers, Louisa, and Kobus in August of 2016. The social workers wanted to set up a system to ensure that the children were being monitored. Kobus and Louisa were told they needed to take the children to weekly checkups with an appointed doctor; they were also told to go to counseling. Initially, the couple went along with these rules. The children were brought to the doctor a few times, and the couple even attended a few counseling sessions. During this time, Yaku reported back to the social workers to say that it seemed the mistreatment of the children was at an all-time high. However, the social workers brushed him off and said they were dealing with it. The doctor had been noting bruises on Poppy’s body during his weekly examinations. He asked Poppy about them, but with her limited vocabulary, she could only say, “They hurt me.” You would think that as these visits were specifically set up to monitor for child abuse, the doctor would see that this is a clear sign that something was wrong. However, he claimed that since she didn’t say who hurt her, he didn’t document these injuries as legitimate signs of abuse.
Unfortunately, Yaku woke up one morning in September of 2016 to find their house deserted. The family had packed up and just disappeared into the night. Kobus did not quit his job, and the daycare staff were not informed that Poppy wouldn’t be returning; the family just up and left. Kobus and Louisa drove almost 8 hours to the small farming community of Brits, where they found a place to stay at one of the local farms. While the family was living on the farm, Louisa’s brother died suddenly. His funeral created a rare occasion where Louisa and her children would be in the presence of Louisa’s mother and extended family. Louisa’s mother, Susan, was immediately concerned when she saw the condition of the children. She noticed that Johan was covered in bruises. When the boy was asked about his injuries, he said that Kobus had hit him, but of course, Louisa denied this. Susan also noticed that the children did not look healthy. She was so concerned after this visit that she reached out to a local pastor for help. However, she was not given any help or support. Instead, she was scolded and told not to interfere in her daughter’s marriage. She never reported any more abuse or questioned the couple again.
On October 25th, 2016, just a month after fleeing the investigation happening in Orania, Kobus was seen running through the parking lot of Brits Provincial Hospital with Poppy in his arms. He asked hospital staff to help her, as she was not breathing. However, it quickly became apparent that it was far, far too late. The doctor attempted to open Poppy’s airway to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation; he found that rigor mortis had already set in. Her mouth could not be opened. Poppy had already been dead for quite some time. Poppy had arrived at the hospital in just a pair of underwear, and her entire body was black and blue. The doctors were immediately suspicious and asked Kobus where all the bruises came from, to which he claimed was from her lifeless body bouncing around in the back of the truck on the way to the hospital. More on that in a bit. The doctors also noticed Poppy’s brother in the room. Johan refused to make eye contact; instead, he huddled in the corner, looking scared. When the doctors asked him what happened, he continued to avoid eye contact, but he said clearly, “Poppy didn’t want to eat her food.”
The doctor took Kobus into his office and told him that he was calling the police. Kobus tried to talk his way out of it, saying that involving the police was unnecessary. Luckily, the doctor was unmoved and made the call. While waiting for the police to arrive, the medical staff took pictures of Poppy’s damaged body. When the first police officer arrived, he was initially just shown photos of Poppy’s injuries. The officer, who was the father of a 13-month-old baby, was overcome with the horror of her injuries and was unable to hold back tears. He said in his whole career he never had seen such a young child look so broken. He then asked to be taken to her parents. The officer interviewed Louisa and Kobus separately. Kobus’s initial story was that Poppy had simply collapsed while watching TV. Louisa’s story was similar, but she added a few things that we’ll touch on in just a moment. Kobus was taken into police custody, but Louisa was allowed to return home. The story of how Poppy died will likely never be fully known, but through various testimony and evidence, a rough story has been put together.
Louisa claimed that the day before Poppy died, Kobus had hit her head on a cabinet. The following morning, on October 25th, Poppy was not herself. Kobus claimed that Louisa had thrown Poppy from their bedroom when she found the toddler had soiled the bed. The little girl did not want to eat or talk all day long. Louisa described her as half awake and half asleep as she lay on a mat in front of the television. Louisa said that Kobus returned home later in the day from running errands and getting groceries, and she told him that Poppy was very tired and needed to rest. Louisa said that he then walked over to Poppy and kicked her in the stomach. She said that this was normal and he did this very often. She also could not recall if Poppy cried when she was kicked. Kobus then told Louisa to go get the groceries from the vehicle, so she did. Louisa returned with the groceries; she claims that Poppy was no longer on the carpet and that Kobus told her that “Poppy is playing dead again.” They later claimed that Poppy did this frequently—she’d been having spells where she wasn’t breathing and had to be shaken to take a breath, but they also claimed that she just liked to pretend to play dead. Louisa said she found Poppy in the bathroom, and her lips were blue. She claimed that she attempted CPR and mouth-to-mouth, but it didn’t work. Kobus also said he tried splashing water on her face to rouse her. When none of that worked, they headed for the hospital.
The couple claimed that the rough ride in the back of the truck was what caused the bruises. That’s right—she was not in their arms; she was just laid in the back to bounce around while they drove. Now obviously, we know that her caretakers had been leaving bruises on her body long before the day they finally took her life, so this detail isn’t truly necessary to illustrate how she became so badly bruised. Instead, this shows us that this is the nicest thing that they could think to say about how she was treated: that she was laid alone and broken in the back of a truck while they drove to the hospital. When Poppy’s grandmother was allowed to view her body, she was absolutely shocked. She said that she couldn’t even recognize the poor girl through all of the injuries. From Yaku’s testimony, it also sounds like hitting her head on the cabinet wasn’t what caused the state. From what he could observe in the residence next door, it sounded like Poppy was regularly thrown against the walls or cabinets as punishment. Louisa remained free until Poppy’s autopsy report came out. According to the report, the bottom left of her skull was filled with blood, and she had several abrasions on her face, chest, and thighs. She died from one or more blows to the head. Now, it could not be ruled out that she wasn’t kicked, or that her head hadn’t been smashed against a solid surface like they claimed. It was also noted that there were numerous other injuries that had been inflicted over time. There was no doubt that she was the victim of deliberate child abuse occurring over a long period of time. The best estimate is that this took place from September 2015 till she died in October of 2016.
As the story of Poppy’s death reached the community, residents were outraged. Kobus was regularly being targeted and attacked by other inmates while in prison; several death threats were made against him. Now initially, Louisa was left out of the spotlight. However, as more information came out, it became clear to the community that at the very least, Louisa allowed her children to be beaten and tortured by her husband, but it is more likely that she also participated. Before Poppy’s funeral on November 4th, 2016, Louisa got a visit from a woman posing as a police officer. She convinced Louisa that she needed to go with them for questioning. Instead, Louisa was kidnapped, taken to an isolated location, and badly beaten. She arrived at Poppy’s funeral with a face entirely black and blue. Louisa was arrested on December 15th, 2016, and charged in her daughter’s death. There was a significant delay before the trial was held because no one would agree to represent the couple. The trial eventually began in October of 2017, one year after Poppy’s death. Another reason for the delay is a reason that YouTube does not like us to talk about: before the trial, Kobus tried twice to remove himself permanently from being forced to face the consequences of his actions against Poppy—once with a knife, and once with a bottle of cleaning chemicals.
During the trial, Louisa’s children testified against the couple. Marlé testified that she was badly mistreated in the time before she was kicked out of the house. She also added that Louisa would just stand and watch as Kobus beat and berated her. In addition, an unidentified teen testified against them. Her identity was kept secret from the public and the jury. She had babysat Poppy and her brother and had been the victim of Kobus’s rage as well. Kobus had accused her of being intimate with men in their house when she was babysitting. She also testified that she heard Poppy and her brother being beaten. The girl said, and I quote, “At times, the beatings were so bad that her terrified screams actually masked the sounds of the punches and thuds against the wall. She was so frantic.” Furthermore, Poppy’s brother Johan testified against his mother and stepfather as well. When asked if it was true that Kobus had tried to rouse Poppy by splashing water on her face, as he had previously testified, the boy had a different story. He said that Kobus had actually stuck Poppy’s head in the toilet and flushed it to try to stop her from “playing dead.” However, even that did not rouse her. When asked what his mother was doing while Poppy lay dying, the boy said she just stood in the doorway and watched.
Both Louisa and Kobus were found guilty of killing Poppy. In May of 2018, they were both sentenced to life in prison. They were also given 10 additional years for child abuse against both Poppy and her brother. The judge in this case, Judge Bert Bam, was particularly disturbed and furious about Poppy’s story. He noticed in the courtroom how unaffected Louisa and Kobus were by the horrifying images of Poppy’s body, whereas other people in the room could barely stand to look at them. He went so far as to call the couple “inherently evil” and noted that it seemed their only regret was being caught. Judge Bam was also outraged that all of this had gone on for so long. Unlike an acute fit of rage that might end someone’s life, there were hundreds of opportunities for someone to step in and save Poppy’s life. He blamed the social worker, the school teachers, and the doctors who examined Poppy. He said they were accomplices in her death. He even went so far as filing a petition against them; however, nothing came of these attempts, and no one else was ever prosecuted in Poppy’s death.
Johan was taken and placed in the custody of a family member after Louisa was arrested. Marlé continued to live with her biological father, Freddy L. She said that she felt enormously guilty for what happened to her sister. She wished that she was really Poppy’s mom, because if she was, Poppy would still be alive. Typically, at the end of these stories, we like to share something nice about the victim in our story. However, not much is known about Poppy other than the horrors that she endured. We even struggle to say that she would have been better off in the custody of her father. Despite Christo’s emotional appearance in the media and at Poppy’s funeral, his record tells us that he is not an entirely innocent party either. After Poppy’s death, Christo was once again accused of domestic violence. Christo’s new wife said that she was unable to attend several days of Poppy’s trial because Christo had beaten her so badly that she couldn’t see. We can only hope that in Christo’s care, Poppy’s brother Johan fares better than Poppy did.
