Cape Town – He is devastated by the news of his wife’s death and believes she would have been found alive had the search by police for her on Table Mountain been conducted properly.
Having just returned from New York, Chris Nikoi spoke exclusively to the Cape Argus about the death of his wife, Charlotte, a Unicef associate director who went missing on the mountain on March 21.
This week police confirmed that they had found her body on the mountain.
“I am not unhappy with any individual but, institutionally, the way missing persons are dealt with, especially adults, I personally think that there is vast room for improvement.”
“The fact that she was found where she was, speaks clearly that the search that was conducted was not properly done,” he said.
Nikoi said he is prepared to take it further to assist in improving the situation for others.
“My wife is gone, but I don’t want her death to be in vain. I want to contribute in some way, so that any person who goes through this has a different outcome,” he said.
Nikoi said it has been a harrowing two months since her disappearance.
He, his wife and daughter had hiked up Platteklip Gorge. Halfway up, she decided to turn back. That was the last time he saw her.
Nikoi was sitting in his wife’s apartment in New York when he received the call informing him that a body had been found on Table Mountain.
“My office called me saying that a body had been found on Table Mountain and it looks like my wife judging by the clothing. That’s how I heard,” he said.
At the time no DNA tests had been conducted to prove that it was her, so he was forced to wait for the DNA results while “praying and hoping every single day of my life that she would be found alive”.
Police spokesperson Andre Traut said police treated the disappearance of Nikoi as a number one priority and that it was thoroughly investigated.
Wilderness Search and Rescue spokesperson Johan Marais said that when his team originally went to search they found nothing. “We searched the entire day with 18 people and two dogs,” Marais said