Cape Town - A young Kuils River mother went missing after she went to Wellington for a job. Chantell “China” Matthyssen, 21, had gone to meet her parents’ friend, Johan Williams, who has also since disappeared. Her mother, Carol, says Williams called her to say his wife had organised a job for Chantell as a packer at a wine farm.
She says Chantell left her three-year-old son with her and took a train to Wellington on Saturday afternoon.
Carol said Chantell texted her the whole time and said when they arrived at Williams’ Wendy house on a farm, his wife was not there. “We knew him. I called him to hear where his wife was and he told me she had gone with her brother to Citrusdal as their mother had gotten ill,” says Carol.
Chantell told her her phone battery was flat and that she would be using “uncle John’s” phone. “That was the last time I spoke to her,” says the worried mom.
On Sunday she sent Chantell a text on Williams’ phone and was confused when her daughter responded in “hoë Afrikaans” (high Afrikaans). “My daughter speaks English, she has never used the word behulpsaam (helpful),” says Carol.
By Tuesday she was frantic and she and her husband drove to Wellington, where they learnt to their dismay that Williams’ wife had left him the week before.
She says he answered his cellphone and told them he was on the road, but when they got a neighbour to knock on his door, he opened.
Carol says he then directed them to the farm where Chantell was supposedly working, but when they got there, the owner told them he did not know Chantell. “I called Williams and he told me, sorry he had given the wrong farm name. We then went to the police,” says Carol.
She says back at his shack, police found Chantell’s clothes that she was wearing - blue jeans and a black hoodie - as well as her bag and phone. The mom says Williams made an excuse to go outside and ran off.
On Thursday police were digging up the ground around Williams’ Wendy house. Police spokesperson, Lieutenant-Colonel Andrè Traut, would only confirm that a search had been launched for Chantell.