I never gave up on catching my auntie’s killer
Justice for grieving niece
A MURDERER and rapist brought to justice by the victim’s avenging niece will be sentenced today.
Lehanne Sergison, 51, became so frustrated by the lack of progress in catching her aunt’s killer that she mounted a daring sting operation.
She created a false identity on Facebook and flirted with prime suspect Andrea Imbayarwo, 32, a gardener at her aunt’s lodge in South Africa.
In 2014, staff at Rra-Ditau in Limpopo found Christine Robinson, 59, with her throat cut and wrapped in a duvet. Imbayarwo had fled to Zimbabwe.
By 2018 fed-up Lehanne decided to target Imbayarwo. He was active on dating sites in South Africa so, from her home in Bickley, South East London, she posed online as “Missy Falcao”, a combination of the names of her dogs.
She messaged Imbayarwo, flirting and telling him he was “so hot” and had “sexy eyes”. Lehanne said: “I told him I was a stewardess as it meant I wasn’t always contactable. It was hard as this man murdered my auntie. I had nightmares when we were messaging each other.”
He agreed to a date in Johannesburg but the local police failed to pick him up.
“I told the authorities but nobody was listening,” she said. The killer then ignored approaches by fresh aliases
created by Lehanne.
RAPED
In 2020, she took a more direct approach and wrote a Facebook post naming Imbayarwo, who then went by the name Andrew Ndlovu, as Christine’s killer.
Next to his picture, she posted: “Six years ago today this man raped and murdered my aunt Christine Robinson. Andrew Ndlovu is still a free man enjoying his life after taking hers.” It was shared by 70,000 people and was spotted by Ian Cameron, an anti-crime activist in South Africa. He was approached by Imbayarwo’s then employer. The killer was arrested at his staff accommodation. Christine, a former teacher from Liverpool, had run the 125-acre lodge alone for two years after the death of her husband Daniel, an ex-RAF mechanic. Imbayarwo denied murder and rape at his trial at Polokwane high court, claiming he had a sexual relationship with his employer.
But he was found guilty after an ex-colleague who had taken him to the Zimbabwean border, told the court he heard Imbayarwo on the phone saying: “I killed a white woman.”