The road between Uniondale and Willowmore, in the semi-desert area of the Karoo is noted for the Uniondale Phantom Hitchhiker, a phantom hitchhiking girl called Marie Charlotte Roux. On 12th April 1968 there was a car accident on the road near Uniondale in which the 22 year old girlfriend of an off duty Air Force Lieutenant died. She was short with long hair, wearing dark green trousers and a duffel coat. On Good Friday, 1976 Anton Le Grange from Oudtshoorn was driving from Willowmore and was roughly thirteen kilometres from Uniondale when he saw a woman standing by the roadside and gave her a lift only to realise moments later that she was no longer in the back seat. He reported it to the police who, distrustful at first, later verified by PC Snowy Potgieter when they returned to the spot and the car doors opened without explanation. Later, Le Grange was shown a photo of the dead girl by journalist Janie Meyer who recognized it as the "girl". On Good Friday, 1978 Corporal Dawie van Jaarsveld was riding his motorcycle on the N9 and stopped to offer her a lift. She accepted, put on a helmet and his earphones and after a kilometre or two, he reported that the bike had a twitch and thought that his passenger had fallen off. He worriedly retreated looking for her lying in the road but saw nobody. Later he found that the earphones she had worn had been severely melted and were now unusable. The girl matched Maria's description. Two years later, also on Good Friday, a motocylist reported experiencing "somebody grasping him tight around the waist" while driving past the spot of the accident.
