A murderer has appeared in court for raping and killing a Liverpool woman living in South Africa after her niece tracked him down on a dating app.
Lehanne Sergison, 51, set up a fake account and flirted with her aunt's killer in an attempt to set up a sting operation. Andrea Imbayarwo, 32, murdered Christine Robinson, 59, at her 125-acre lodge in Limpopo in 2014, before fleeing to his native Zimbabwe.
He was employed by Christine as a gardener and became the prime suspect when staff found the former teacher from Liverpool wrapped in a duvet with her throat cut, MirrorOnline reports .
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Frustrated with a lack of progress in the case, Lehanne targeted Imbayarwo in 2018 from her home in Bickley, Kent, after discovering he was active on dating sites and back in South Africa. She posed online as "Missy Falcao" and messaged Imbayarwo, telling him he was "so hot" and had "sexy eyes".
She told The Times: "I told him I was a stewardess as it meant I wasn't always contactable. It was hard as this man murdered my aunty. I had nightmares when we were messaging each other."
He agreed to a date in Johannesburg but the South African police failed to pick him up. The killer then ignored approaches by Lehanne using new aliases.
Six years after the murder in 2020, she decided to take a more direct approach and wrote a Facebook post naming Imbayarwo, who then went by the name Andrew Ndlovu, as her aunt's killer.
Next to his picture, she posted: "Six years ago today this man raped and murdered my aunt Christine Robinson. Andrew Ndlovu is still a free man enjoying his life after taking hers."
It was shared by 70,000 people and was spotted by Ian Cameron, an anti-crime activist in South Africa. He was approached by Imbayarwo's then employer and the killer was arrested at his Johannesburg staff accommodation.
Lehanne said: "I kept going because Chrissy deserved it. She was such a wonderful woman, I know everybody always says that but she really was."
Christine had run the park alone for two years after the death of her husband Daniel, a former RAF mechanic. Imbayarwo denied murder and rape at his trial this week at Polokwane high court, claiming he had had a sexual relationship with his employer.
But he was found guilty after a former colleague at the lodge, who gave him a lift to the Zimbabwean border, told the court that he heard Imbayarwo on the phone admitting: "I killed a white woman."
He will be sentenced on Thursday.
