Pretoria - Nearly 12 years after a drug addicted teenager went missing in Hillbrow, after she ran away from her parents’ East Rand home, the high court on Thursday declared her to be presumably dead.
Nadi Ebersohn was 16 when her parents heard from her for the last time.
It was a phone call a few days after she had run away in August 2004, asking whether she could return home.
Her mother Ansa said in papers before the high court in Pretoria that she told her daughter she was always welcome at home.
She even prepared her daughter’s bedroom for her return.
“Little did I know that the phone call was the last time that I would hear her voice,” the mother said.
“She did not have a will or anything.
“We simply want to have her presumed dead so that we, as a family, could get closure,” Ebersohn said.
According to the mother, chances were slim or non-existent that Nadi was still alive.
Ebersohn filed a missing person’s report with the police, and the media at the time published stories regarding missing children.
Nadi had a severe drug addition since she was very young and would disappear from time to time, but would return home after a few days.
Her mother said the week before her disappearance Nadi told them that she could no longer live without drugs. She said she decided to finally move out.
The teenager phoned her mother two days after she left to ask whether she could return home.
“We were overjoyed to hear her voice and I told her she could always return. That was the last time I ever heard my daughter’s voice.”
Her cellphone has been off ever since. The police circulated her picture in Hillbrow, in places which drug dealers frequented.
Some confirmed she was employed to run drugs and money for some of the dealers at the time of her disappearance.
“It is inevitable that Nadi found herself in the company of extremely dangerous people who would no doubt exploit her drug addiction,” the mother said.
She said the family did everything they could to trace her, but there were no indications that she was still alive.
The mother said the teenager was feeling and looking down and out when she disappeared.
Her health had deteriorated due to her constant use of drugs.
“She was at her unhealthiest when she disappeared,” said Ebersohn.
Nadi, said Ebersohn, could not last for more than 24 hours without drugs and she constantly stole from her parents to sustain her addiction.
She associated herself with criminals, notable drug dealers and other repugnant characters.
In November last year the court issued an interim order declaring her dead and at the time called on people with information about her whereabouts to come forward.
Nobody had any information and the order had now been confirmed.
Pretoria News