[2] Van Rooyen married and subsequently fathered six children: Anne Marie, Judith, Hannes, Flippie, Gerhard and Adriaan, and earned a legitimate living running a building construction business together with his brothers.
In 1979, Van Rooyen abducted two girls, aged 10 and 13, taking them to the Hartbeespoort Dam near Pretoria, where he punched them in the face, ordered them to remove their clothing and sexually molested them.
In 1988, Van Rooyen started dating divorcee Francina Johanna ("Joey") Hermina Haarhoff, who became his alleged accomplice, and the couple holidayed together at Warmbaths and Umdloti, on the KwaZulu Natal coast.
All the above disappearances, with the exception of Rosa Piel, were linked by witness statements or forensic evidence to Van Rooyen and Haarhoff following their deaths.
For example, Odette Boucher's home address and phone number were found written on a piece of paper and hidden under a carpet in the garage, as well as her class captain's badge and yellow bag.
The roof was removed and vacuumed for traces of human hair and nails, then the walls were demolished and the kitchen and main bedroom were scanned with sonar equipment for cavities.
Although Ray Boucher said police investigations at the address given in Anne-Mari's note proved fruitless, it remains the only positive proof that she and Odette were perhaps alive months after the paedophile couple's bodies were cremated.
On 12 March 2007, renewed interest in the case occurred after a set of adolescent bones was found on the beach near Umdloti, Kwazulu-Natal about 500m away from a holiday resort that Van Rooyen and Haarhoff are known to have visited.
Significant public attention has been brought to bear on the case by the investigative television series Carte Blanche which [7] dedicated an episode[8] to the mystery.
In November 2007, bones were discovered in a property adjacent to Van Rooyen's house in Pretoria whilst the ground was being dug up to install a swimming pool.