Death in Paradise: Nicky van Heerden: Hallucinatory Garden Route love triangle that triggered her murder
That Anneke “Nicky” van Heerden (54) and her alleged killer, Bevan van Druten, had not crossed paths earlier is remarkable.
Van Heerden knew the terrain along that spectacular coast well. She grew up in Uniondale in the Little Karoo, where her parents worked in the post office before the family moved to Plettenberg Bay, the jewel on that coastline.
On 18 January, Van Heerden’s lifeless body was found face down in the sand at Van Druten’s home near Rivertides, Keurbooms River, not far from Plett.
Murdered Knysna resident Anneke ‘Nicky’ van Heerden. (Photo: Anneke van Heerden / Facebook) As a young woman, Van Heerden joined the South African Police Service and worked as a detective. Later she married and lived in Angola and elsewhere with her former husband. She travelled widely and alone, was a fitness and hiking fanatic and could apparently turn her hand to anything she set her mind to.
She returned to Knysna after her divorce, hoping to start a new life, and began calling herself Alaska Runwithwolves on Facebook.
Durban-born Van Druten, a driftwood artist and familiar face at “gift economy” mass outdoor events such as AfrikaBurn, lived an itinerant life up and down the same coast for years.
Shortly after Van Heerden’s body was found, the bedraggled Van Druten, a man she had hours earlier introduced to her family as “the man of my dreams”, was arrested for her murder. Their paths had finally crossed at the start of 2026.
Finding her tribe“She went through a difficult time with the divorce and resettled in Knysna, where she was a well-known, larger-than-life presence,” said a friend, who asked to remain anonymous.
“Alaska” had found her “tribe” in a region perfect for off-the-grid living, “forest bathing”, “sacred mushroom journeys”, drumming circles, chakra resettings, healing massages and religious conversions.
The night she was murdered, neighbours in Rivertides heard screams and summoned a security company, which explained that its members could not enter the property where Van Druten lived unless accompanied by the police. When officers arrived later, she was already dead.
When Van Heerden’s cries for help remained unheeded, it is alleged that an emboldened Van Druten, a known drug user, beat her to death.
After her murder, rumours of a “cult” began circulating in Knysna, but the truth of it all is much more sad and banal.
It features a cast of lonely, displaced, often older people seeking community, companionship, human contact and “spiritual enlightenment” while surrounded by readily available illicit drugs.
Anneke ‘Nicky’ van Heerden. (Photo: Anneke van Heerden / Facebook) Anneke ‘Nicky’ van Heerden in a different phase of her life. (Photo: Anneke van Heerden / Facebook) In the end, it is alleged that Van Heerden’s murder was the result of a drug-fuelled, jealous rage by Van Druten, who perceived a potential rival in fellow forest dweller and “spiritual healer” Rocco Viljoen (58).
In a disturbing WhatsApp message sent by Van Heerden the day before her murder to a chat group, Awaken Truth, which is administered by Viljoen, she spoke of “false prophets” and said that Van Druten was the Lizard King. It was a garbled, angry message filled with expletives that shocked all in the chat group.
Earlier that day, Van Heerden and Van Druten, who had been visiting her in Knysna, had been asked to leave the home of her sister and brother-in-law as their behaviour had been “unacceptable”.
The ex-dominee Forest dweller and ‘spiritual healer’ Rocco Viljoen. (Photo: Facebook) Viljoen, who wears his hair and beard long, is far less cult leader and more one of myriad self-appointed soothsayers in the real world and on the internet who have blossomed after Covid-19, a time of conspiracies and doubt.
Cosmic prisonVan Druten, it appears from his Facebook check-ins, wanted to compete with Viljoen as the algorithmic sage of the day. He seemed convinced that modern-day humans all live in a “cosmic prison”, a programmed reality, manipulated by “elites” through “fear, media and events”.
According to Chantelle Meyburgh, who lives in Knysna and runs a YouTube channel called Aquarius Rising Africa, Viljoen maintains that he had never had a relationship with Van Heerden because they both were “as broken as can be” and were more like “brother and sister”.
(Meyburgh herself believes the universe is dominated by unseen Luciferian women.)
Viljoen said he had sent Van Heerden a message in response to a comment about “going to hell” in her WhatsApp note, assuring her that “hell did not exist”. He said he invited Van Druten and Van Heerden “to come visit me to talk about it. Let’s leave the guns and talk about it,” he said to them.
A previous encounter between Van Druten and Viljoen had ended in a fight when a former girlfriend of Van Druten’s reportedly sought refuge with Viljoen in 2023.
Viljoen, originally from Paarl, is a former “artificial rock art builder” and preacher in the NG Kerk who “transitioned over to spirituality” after his life hit a rocky patch and he moved to the “bush” with his camper van and two cats.
Viljoen has 5,000-odd followers on Facebook, where he likes to post reels about the “true meaning and origins” of Bible texts.
At a bail hearing in the Plettenberg Bay magistrate’s court on 6 March, Van Druten offered a word salad to the court, saying he was “a humble woodworker” and stood in front of the court and the world as the “archangel Michael”. He said he was preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and that Van Heerden would return as the “new Jesus” who would be the world’s salvation.
Van Druten has been placed on a waiting list for psychological observation at Valkenberg Psychiatric Hospital in Cape Town and has yet to plead.
Lost girl Rosalind BallingallIn 1969, a 20-year-old UCT student, Rosalind Ballingall, went missing while visiting a retreat in Fisantehoek in the Knysna Forest. (Photo: Facebook) Spiritual seekers and dropoutsSince Covid, there has been a marked migration to the southern Cape and towns such as Mossel Bay, Knysna, Wilderness, Keurboomstrand and St Helena Bay.
These are popular retirement spots for mostly well-off white South Africans, younger “semigrants” from Gauteng and “digital nomads” from all over.
But the region has also long been a “countercultural” destination for eccentrics, dropouts and hippies.
This was especially the case in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when they hoped to replicate the US hippie movement and its zeitgeist of free love, music, drugs and spiritual conversions.
In 1969, 20-year-old University of Cape Town student and “flower child” Rosalind Ballingall went missing while visiting a “retreat” in Fisantehoek in the Knysna Forest. For years, she was the poster girl for the budding but short-lived hippie movement and for parents hoping to warn their children against going off into the forest to “find themselves”.
Ballingall was never found and she was legally declared dead in the 1980s.
Post-Covid influxAfter the pandemic, estate agents in the southern Cape noted the influx of individuals and families in the region, which led to soaring property prices. The police, meanwhile, noted an escalation in contact and property crimes as well as drug peddling.
Veteran journalist Chris du Plessis, former editor of the Knysna-Plett Herald, has lived in the region for over two decades.
He said small coastal towns had always attracted “spiritual travellers” and self-
proclaimed healers, but a dark undercurrent of drug abuse and violence also plagued
the region. And for some, the two streams inevitably intersect.
“Some of the people who arrive here are in mental distress and are looking to get away from a big city or maybe a broken life,” Du Plessis said.
Mind-altering agents, residents note, are easily accessed: alcohol, psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”), marijuana and – at larger outdoor music events – MDMA or ecstasy. These drugs are either used recreationally or to access a portal to “personal and spiritual enlightenment”.
Then there is the scourge of methamphetamine, always tempting for individuals fighting addiction.
Securing illicit substances and drugs inevitably leads to paths crossing with dealers, their runners and the underworld who need to market their wares to eager trippers.
Prince on a white horseVan Heerden loved the Cape region and was an energetic person who enjoyed travelling, hiking, nature and keeping fit. All those who knew her loved her, a friend said.
It was clear that she was looking for her “prince on a white horse”, as she had informed Viljoen when earlier they had shared “heartbreak” stories.
In November 2025, she tried to set up a speed-dating event. She posted on Facebook: “Hi! So, my first event was cancelled due to not enough numbers.
Friends Rocco Viljoen and Nicky van Heerden. (Screenshot / Facebook reel) Bevan van Druten in the Plettenberg Bay Magistrate’s Court on 6 March 2026 in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images / Media24 / Jackie Kruger) “If you are single and up for some fun, come join my workshop! Drinks and snacks included. We all get to give input to the new paradigm of dating!”
Van Heerden wore many hats during her lifetime. “She was a busy person, larger than life. She could do anything,” the friend said.
She was active on social media, where she described herself as a digital creator. She had also reinvented herself as a fitness and diet expert in an attempt to eke out a living.
How Van Heerden and Van Druten finally met is not yet clear, but for her it ended violently in the sand next to his bakkie.
Van Druten is due to appear in court again on 7 April. DM
This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
