Cape Town – “Where the star witness with two shaky hands, I do’s and all.” This was the last cryptic message Chris Nikoi received from his wife Charlotte before she vanished after walking down Platteklip Gorge.
It was supposed to be their last day in Cape Town before the husband, wife and their daughter Kochoe would head back to Johannesburg.
“Initially we planned to get up early and do the Table Mountain hike and then come back and catch the 11am ferry to Robben Island,” a worried Chris Nikoi said.
At 8:55am they found the tickets for the ferry were sold out. The sales person told them to come back later. “We walked back to have breakfast and returned at 10:30am,” Nikoi said.
At about 11am it became clear to them that they were not going to get tickets and they eventually went up Table Mountain.
“A taxi dropped us at the Platteklip,” he said. He suggested that everyone stay together. “My wife told me that she would be much slower and told us to go ahead.” It was her first time on Table Mountain.
He said his wife sent a text message informing him that she was turning back and would wait for him at the foot of the gorge. “I immediately replied and tried to encouraged her to come up,” he said.
Charlotte instead sent the cryptic message to her husband. He said it now appears that the message was part of a message she sent to her sister on Facebook.
When he and his daughter returned from the top of the mountain, he looked for his wife but she had not even returned to the hotel.
At the time of her disappearance she was wearing light blue shorts, a cream and black-brown cardigan, sleeveless black top, brown sneakers, a big blue hat and oval-shaped glasses. “I know the police have been trying to trace the phone but it’s turned off, ” he said.
Nikoi said he and his family remain hopeful for the safe return of his wife. Charlotte Nikoi is an associate director at Unicef in New York.
“We are fully co-operating with the local police and hope that she will return safely to her family,” Unicef said.