When Jeremy Sias was charged this week with the murder of Meghan Cremer, he had just 18 Facebook friends. Within minutes he was down to 16.
Two members of the family who own the Cape Town farm where Sias was born and raised - and where Cremer lived - cut him off.
Cremer, 30, had been missing for five days after disappearing from her cottage on the farm. Her body was found in Philippi early on Thursday.
Speculation that Sias, 27, knew and targeted Cremer was addressed in a Facebook post by the farm's owner, Linda Mohr.
"Jeremy was born and grew up on one of our family members' farms in the area alongside ours. He was a labourer on our bottom farm, but had no dealings with our stud and livery clients," she said.
"As a family we are not only reeling about losing our dearest Meghan, but now the knowledge that Jeremy was involved has come as a huge shock to us all. We are all devastated."
CCTV footage shows Cremer leaving her cottage at Vaderlandsche Rietvlei stud farm at 6.30pm last week on Saturday. She had earlier told friends she was settling down for the night with no plans to go out.
This led to speculation that Sias might have lured her out on a pretext. "Meghan must have known him ... she either opened her door to him or she was called to maybe come and help him," Aylex Cross said in response to Mohr's post.
"The fact that she drove out the bottom gate tells me he may have been in the car with her, or coerced her there."
Sias told police after his arrest that he lived in Egoli informal settlement in Philippi.
He will be back in Athlone magistrate's court on Thursday after making a brief appearance on Thursday with Charles Daniels, 35, also from Egoli, and Shiraaz Jaftha, 35, from nearby Lotus River.
The gates to Vaderlandsche Rietvlei stud farm were adorned with ribbons on Friday and flowers had been laid there. "On Women's Day, what is it that we're celebrating exactly?" Mohr told the Sunday Times.
"In this country, women live every day with a knife to our throats."
Cremer's mother, Gill, had driven to Cape Town from the family home in Knysna with her son, Paul, after hearing the news of Meghan's disappearance.
They attended a short ceremony at the farm on Friday.
Private investigator Noel Pratten, who was engaged by the Cremers to search for Meghan, said the family were "torn apart" and had shut themselves away.
"The family are not well at all," said Mohr. "Nothing worse could have happened in their lives. There was a sense of hope [during the search]. We rallied together and sent people all over to find her."
Cremer's car was seen at a roadblock in Wynberg, driven by a stranger, on the night of her disappearance. But since it had not been reported stolen, no alarm was raised.
Police said on Wednesday that three men had been arrested in possession of Cremer's white Toyota Auris, and that night Sias was reported to have led detectives to Cremer's body. She had been dumped at a sand mine in Philippi, and was tied up with a rope around her neck.
Mohr said Cremer's decision to leave the farm was "out of character".
"It's possible that she got called away for work, but perhaps there was something else. Talking about it and speculating is going to drive us crazy. The truth will come out."
Meghan was an "immensely helpful" person who would regularly go out of her way to make other people happy, Mohr said.
"She helped raise funds for my daughter to go to a showjumping competition in Germany. She would always help others. She was a friendly, good person who is going to be sorely missed.
"She called me a second mother, and she was like one of my children. On the Friday before she went missing she was talking to me about her next show that she was so excited about."
Cremer's friend, Jaime Lilford, said she spoke to Cremer about three hours before she was seen leaving her house. "She was ready for bed and she sounded fine. I just can't understand why this had to happen to her," she said.
Another friend, Danni Steyn, said: "Meghan moved here four years ago and she became like a sister to us. It doesn't feel real, until you're alone and think about how I'm never going to go get waffles with her again."
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