At times I had to rush to the bathroom to throw up. I was sending flirty messages to a man I believed to be a monster
seemed initial incompetence in South Africa was followed by months of inaction and then apparent utter insouciance, Lehanne became frustrated and increasingly furious.
‘I begged my MP for help, but he referred me back to the Foreign Office,’ recalls Lehanne. ‘The South African police — obviously underfunded — said they would accept British help, but the Foreign Office said they couldn’t intervene. Only the wonderful charity Murdered Abroad, who help relatives find justice, offered meaningful support.’
MEANWHILE, she kept in touch with Chrissie’s staff at the 30-bed lodge. It was a former manager who, in late 2018, let Lehanne know Andrew ndlovu was back in South Africa and posting on Facebook.
‘I’d given up hope of getting help elsewhere. This was my chance,’ says Lehanne. ‘If I could get him to be my Facebook friend, I could at least find out where he lived and worked.
‘But I knew I needed to capture his interest. And that meant setting a honeytrap.’
we all know how sadly common it is for impoverished young men to create sexy images on social media to trick comfortably-off women of a certain age into falling in love with them.
‘I decided to use the exact same tactics,’ explains Lehanne. ‘with my husband Simon’s help, I created an alter ego. I called myself Missy Falcao, which is a conglomeration of the names of my two greyhounds.
‘For my photo, I chose a back shot of a woman with dark hair which I got off the internet. You couldn’t see her face, but I hoped it was tantalising enough. I built up a back story. I was a 28-yearold air hostess, which would shout out glamour and money. I said I was from Ghana but living near the airport in Johnnesburg.’
She also created an army of fictional friends for herself who posted on Missy Falcao’s page.
‘I’m not particularly technically minded, so keeping track of what I was posting and ensuring I had set the security levels right was a nightmare,’ she says.
To allay suspicion, as well as befriending ndlovu, Lehanne ‘added’ his friends. ‘I posted cheesy messages and, every time they posted a photo, I was first to say how much I liked it. I posted happy Birthday messages, too.’
As ndlovu regularly changed his Facebook name and profile, presumably because he knew he was a wanted man, she was able to track him through his friends. however, while ndlovu accepted her friendship requests, he failed to respond to Lehanne’s friendly messages.
But like every good amateur detective, Lehanne knew patience would pay off.
Sure enough, one afternoon in December 2018, some six months after Lehanne started posting, ndlovu — now calling himself Andrea Druza on the website — took the bait.
‘I’d decided to be a bit bolder,’ says Lehanne. ‘ndlovu had posted a photo of himself so I wrote: “You look sexy.” Up flashed the response. “Thank u. how u doing?” ‘This was what I wanted, but I went into a panic, wondering what I was going to say next, and called for Simon.’ To build a credible dialogue, Simon grabbed his laptop and checked the weather in Johannesburg (where ndlovu was living) that day, and looked at what was going on in his local area. ‘It meant I could start a conversation about the weather and what was going on in local clubs, just to start building his trust,’ says Lehanne. As the days passed and ndlovu’s interest was piqued, Lehanne knew she needed more help. ‘Simon and I have been together over 20 years so it’s a very long time since I have flirted with a stranger,’ explains Lehanne. ‘I rang friends with daughters and asked them for tips.’ Lehanne knew she had to keep ndlovu tantalised without giving away too much. She often posted at night, propped up in bed beside the sleeping Simon. ‘I explained I was a modest, Christian woman and had had my heart broken so I wouldn’t be rushing into anything,’ recalls Lehanne. ‘I told him I wanted to quit my job to start a family and fancied hotel work. I built up a picture of a kind, naïve and demure woman looking for love.’ Soon messages were coming thick and fast from the smitten ndlovu.
‘My heart beats faster when I see a message from you. I feel like we have a connection,’ he wrote. As she reeled him in, Lehanne was both exultant and repulsed. ‘There were times I had to rush to the bathroom to throw up,’ she shudders.
‘On the evidence I believed this man was a monster, but here I was exchanging flirty messages with him — building up a rapport, feeling sorry for him. I even called him Sexy eyes just to build trust.
‘I knew it was the only way I could nail him. But having to sweet talk him gave me nightmares. I wanted to scream: “I know what you have done.”’
THEY had been corresponding for a few weeks when ndlovu suggested they chat. ‘That was impossible so I had to pretend my father had had a heart attack back home in Ghana and I’d flown home and had no phone signal,’ says Lehanne.
Soon ndlovu was calling her his princess and begging to meet. Once again Lehanne was able to use her air hostess cover story to put him off. however, he began to get suspicious.
‘he thought I was cheating on him,’ Lehanne says with a wry smile. Lehanne reassured him she wasn’t and suggested they make plans to meet one Saturday.
She then got the South African police involved. They agreed to be there when she set up a meeting. But, frustratingly, each time she arranged to meet ndlovu, the police cancelled, blaming lack of manpower.
Lehanne knew she couldn’t keep up the pretence for ever, especially as she had to keep cancelling their ‘dates’. Then, in June last year, six months into the ‘relationship’, ndlovu stopped responding to her Facebook messages.
It seemed as if Lehanne was back at square one. ‘I was so upset. we had come so far,’ she says. however, through continuing to track his Facebook account, she saw when he posted a photo of himself on his birthday, February 6. The backdrop showed he was still in Johannesburg.
‘he could still be caught — it just needed one more push,’ she says.
On July 30, Lehanne posted a memorial on Facebook, stating her suspicions that six years ago ndlovu raped and murdered her aunt. For the first time she included a photo of ndlovu. The post was shared by South African human rights group AfriForum. within hours it was shared 70,000 times.
And so it was that Lehanne was buying lavender — Chrissie’s favourite plant — when a woman messaged her on Facebook. She had seen the post and recognised ndlovu as a labourer at the family business.
‘She told me that when she showed ndlovu the photo, he burst into tears and said that it wasn’t him.’
ndlovu was arrested later that day. On August 3 he was charged with Chrissie’s rape and murder. he will reappear in court today for a bail hearing. ‘I’ve been told that, because he fled after the murder, it’s unlikely he will be bailed,’ says Lehanne. ‘But I don’t want to be too confident.’
It’s tempting to think that Lehanne’s fight would make her beloved aunt proud. But most of all Lehanne feels an aching sense of loss.
‘At her funeral everyone talked about Chrissie’s kindness and her infectious laugh, which was like champagne bubbles. when her murderer is finally behind bars, I hope we can concentrate on the wonderful woman she was, not her terrible end.’