Warren Batchelor may have laid his brother’s body to rest, but that doesn’t mean he is going to stop asking questions.

It has recently emerged just how secretive Marc Batchelor was about his whereabouts, sometimes going to extreme measures to ensure that only those closest to him knew his exact movements.

Police are still trying to figure out how his killers, who reportedly opened fire from a motorbike, knew where and when to find him.

According to TimesLIVE, Batchelor’s WhatsApp messages may hold the answers:

The Sunday Times understands that organised crime detectives have secured WhatsApp messages, including voice notes, that Batchelor sent to several people about his trip home from the business meeting.

A police intelligence source said the voice notes included one about him leaving Welkom, and another related to his route home.

The messages have led his brother, Warren [below], to question how the men who killed his brother knew of his whereabouts, because he only ever told those close to him where he was…

“Just hours before he died, he sent two voice notes from his phone, the first about him leaving Welkom, the second that he was taking the N1-Malibongwe off-ramp and that he was nearly home,” said Warren.

He had learnt that after Batchelor arrived home he took his dogs for a walk on a smallholding near his home.

“He was killed while coming back from the walk. Given Marc’s security concerns, and how he is said to have limited the knowledge of his movements to a few people, I want to know how those who killed him tracked him down.”

Given how heavily encrypted and secure WhatsApp is, you would then suspect that perhaps it was someone passing on the information contained in the messages, rather than having hacked into WhatsApp.

The murder scene itself has led Warren to wonder if he might have known the people that gunned him down, with the windows wound down and the car set in “park” mode, which would seem unusual for someone who had become “so obsessive about his security”.

He has asked the police for further information, but the investigating officer has kept his cards pretty close to his chest.

Warren is also rather upset about how things played out at the crime scene following the discovery of Marc’s body:

“I found out about Marc’s murder on Twitter. A friend called me to ask if had I seen the pictures. I thought she was joking. You could see there were people on the scene who should not have been allowed there, taking photos of my brother.

“Why was that allowed? Who were these people and have they been questioned about how they got access to my brother? The cops say his phone went missing from the scene. Have they found it?”

A Johannesburg private investigator, Jean Cotton, was arrested in connection with the alleged theft of the cellphone of Batchelor, although he was later released and all charges against him were dropped.

Perhaps there is far more information still to come in this one, but we do know that Batchelor had angered some dangerous and powerful people.

As some of those speaking out about the circumstances of his death have said, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

[source:timeslive]