WATCH: Mystery witness jets into Durban with #SiamLee evidence

Shane Brits, operations manager for Brad Nathanson Investigations, at the house in the Assagay area where a man was arrested in connection with the murder of Siam Lee. Picture: Zanele Zulu/African News Agency (ANA)

Shane Brits, operations manager for Brad Nathanson Investigations, at the house in the Assagay area where a man was arrested in connection with the murder of Siam Lee. Picture: Zanele Zulu/African News Agency (ANA)

Published Jan 20, 2018

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Durban - A witness from out of town who could help in the investigation into the murder of Siam Lee arrived in Durban yesterday, according to private investigator Brad Nathanson, who this week detained a suspect and handed him over to police.

He would not comment further about the witness.

The suspect is expected to appear in court on Monday.

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The stone-walled cottage-style house, where the suspect, believed to be a 29-year-old biochemist, was apprehended, could not look more removed from the urban underworld.

Situated among smallholdings in the Assagay area, it is a place which is more easily associated with the nesting weaver birds in its garden trees than the libido-boosting pills, penis enlargement creams and other sexual devices found on the property.

An arrest in the gruesome Siam Lee murder case this week happened at an unlikely house, seemingly far from Durban's underworld. In custody is a man who lived a loner's life, reportedly surrounded by sexual devices.

Information led Nathanson and his team to the house on Wednesday where they saw the luxury car believed to have been used to abduct Lee.

“He (the suspect) hadn’t been home for two days, so we closed everything up. If he had seen the garage open when he came home he would have disappeared,” said Shane Brits, operations manager at Brad Nathanson Investigations.

However, minutes after leaving they got word that the suspect was on his way home along the M13 freeway.

“We sped here and sat in surveillance at the top,” he said, pointing at the steep road past the property.

He seemed to be preparing to escape when he realised he was about to be caught, said Nathanson. 

Siam Lee Picture: Supplied

Brits said he appeared to live the life of a loner. The car – a Mercedes-Benz Vito – has been handed to police custody pending forensic investigations. Word emerged this week about other efforts to track down Lee, leading members of the Mobi Claw security company into Durban’s prostitution underworld. Mike Myers of Mobi Claw wrote on Facebook about high-level highway brothels and low-level hang-outs in the flatland close to the beachfront.

“These women would go off with the client and return to ‘their’ spot within 15 minutes to an hour, not bathed or showered after a quick interlude in the client’s car, waiting for the next ‘John’ – and plenty of Johns there were,” he wrote, referring to the beachfront area.

They said they charged R100 for “oral pleasure” and gave “full house treatment” for an extra R50.

Myers called the Point, Pickering and Fisher quadrant “the most sordid”.

“In the first block we entered, each flat was not much bigger than a parking bay. Some had six to eight inhabitants. Faeces, urine, syringes and needles were on the floor. One person was even lying, passed out, with a needle hanging out the arm.”

Further along, in a more upmarket block, two receptionists were on duty at the entrance.

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“A night here costs R80. Some rooms are furnished, others are not and permanent residents furnish them themselves,” wrote Myers.

“We found a woman that everyone said was Siam, but it wasn’t. We could certainly see the similarity and why we have been led to her.”

“Let’s call her Jane,” Myers continued.

“We estimated her to be in her late twenties. In her own right, she was very attractive, save for her teeth, which had been rotted by drugs. 

“She very quickly softened to us when she realised we were not there for her and looking for a missing girl and invited us into her flat. 

“She was a hard, streetwise girl who didn’t pull any punches, saying it like it is. 

“But we noted little things. She had a cat that loves her and won’t leave her alone.

“There was a bedraggled Christmas tree in the one corner. 

“You soon realise, this girl has a heart and somewhere deep down in there she is hurting and wanting for more, but the drugs have captured her soul.”

At nightclubs, there was the odd woman who could have fitted Lee’s profile. They met someone they called Mary who claimed to know Siam but had not seen her in a while.

“Mary was working the beachfront out of desperation but wanted to get back to operating in the suburbs.

“She had heard that Siam might be working at a ‘lodge’ in the Morningside area. 

“We set it up with Mary where she would go into the ‘lodge’, saying she wanted to start working there. She would look for Siam and if she was there, she would get a message to us.”

Around then, word came that Lee had been murdered.

“Not all was lost as we discovered one brothel after the other in the upmarket suburbs,” said Myers.

Some are in Cowies Hill and Westville.

“When we talk drugs and brothels, we are also not just talking weed and high-class escorts. We are talking cocaine, ecstasy, crack, heroin, etc. 

“These brothels house the most sordid adult entertainers of all races, female, male and ‘lady boys’,” said Myers.

The Independent on Saturday

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