Distraught dad recalls daughter’s death

“ABSIE, are you okay?”

These are possibly the last words Nicole Muller, 29, heard the night she was killed.

Muller’s distraught father, Tony Absolon, said his daughter and four of her friends were about to leave a club in Stellenbosch last Saturday when two gun-wielding men entered.

Muller, a mother of two boys and wife to Andre, was one of two who were killed.

“My daughter was out celebrating the 30th birthday of a friend. They were a group of five girls who always did everything together. They were in primary school together and they matriculated together. It was a surprise birthday party,” Absolon said.

“The Friday evening, we went to bed early and I just remember being woken by a knock at past 2am. It was my sister, her husband and their sons and she shouted at me asking why I wasn’t answering my phone?

“She told me Nicole had been shot. We immediately rushed to the club but I remained hopeful that my daughter was okay.”

Absolon said they saw red and blue flashing lights.

“I was told her body was still in the foyer and they wanted to take us to where she was lying but I couldn’t bring myself to go there. I just sat in the car,” he said.

On Sunday, Muller’s friends explained the tragic events to Absolon. “I was told that they were about to leave with an Uber taxi already waiting for them. As they were leaving, one man ran in with another two following. The two suspects started shooting and everybody fell to the ground.

“The man they were chasing was shot execution style, in the kitchen. The suspects then left the club, jumped in a black Golf and drove off.”

Absolon said Muller’s friends, who nicknamed her Absie after her maiden surname, checked on each other after the men left the club.

“When they called out ‘Absie, are you okay?’ she never answered but she lifted her hand as if she was about to say something. She died then and there.”

He described his daughter as the “livewire of the family”.

Police spokesperson FC van Wyk has said a double murder case is being investigated.