Lady narrates how she tracked, seduced her aunt’s killer on Facebook and got him arrested

A new documentary reveals how a determined British woman took justice into her own hands by turning into an online sleuth and seducing the man she suspected of raping and murdering her beloved aunt after police failed to catch him.

Lehanne Sergison, a retired chartered surveyor from Bromley, wooed the suspect through Facebook direct messages, telling him “you’ve got sexy eyes,” in a bid to lure him out. Her extraordinary story is the subject of the Amazon Prime Video documentary The Facebook Honeytrap: Catching A Killer, released Sunday, July 20/

Lehanne, 54, shares how she tracked down the 26-year-old gardener, Andrea Imbayarwo, who also went by Andrew Ndlovu, after he attacked and murdered Christine Robinson, 59, on the 125-acre Rra-Ditau game lodge in Thamazimbi, South Africa in July 2014.

Christine, a retired teacher known to family as “Chrissie,” lived alone on the estate after her husband’s death in 2012. Imbayarwo raped her, slashed her throat with a knife left embedded in her neck, then bundled her body in a duvet. He fled with £3,500 intended for estate staff wages.

Lehanne received the tragic news by phone on July 30, 2014, and assumed police would catch the killer. However, CCTV footage showed him fleeing to Zimbabwe, and authorities said they were powerless to act.

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Eaten away by the idea the case would remain unsolved, Lehanne became fixated on finding Imbayarwo. “He could feel the sun on his face and the wind in his hair when she couldn’t,” she told Weekend magazine. “Hearing of Christine’s murder was like an electric shock running through my body. We’d always been so close. It was a brutal, traumatic death for a lovely, kind, generous woman.”

After exhausting official channels, including delivering a petition and 430 letters to 10 Downing Street in 2014 calling for then-Prime Minister David Cameron’s intervention, Lehanne realized she had to act herself. “I think life is cheap there [South Africa]. It’s accepted. Even when they find the men responsible, cases fall apart because systems aren’t robust enough,” she told the Telegraph.

Lehanne created a fake Facebook account under the pseudonym “Missy Falcao,” posing as a flirtatious air hostess. “I sent him a message saying, ‘You’ve got sexy eyes.’ Then I panicked. I was going down a route, but I didn’t know where. My emotions were a rollercoaster,” she said. “When he replied, I could barely breathe. My stomach was doing somersaults. My husband was shocked that he’d replied, but we agreed the important thing was to keep him hooked in.”

Over weeks, their online “romantic” relationship developed. “I decided she was a young, sassy air stewardess from Ghana. He was flattered; I knew flattery would keep him interested,” Lehanne said. Despite the emotional toll “It hurt every time I contacted him. I wanted to say, ‘I know who you are and what you’ve done.’ But I did what I felt I had to do to get justice” she persevered.

Lehanne eventually obtained the killer’s phone number and tipped off South African detectives to arrange a sting, but the attempt failed when his phone was switched off. “I was angry and disappointed. I contacted Andrew but there was no response,” she recalls. A few days later, he messaged her claiming his phone had been stolen, coinciding suspiciously with the sting night.

The contact ended, and the trail went cold for nearly two years until the sixth anniversary of Christine’s death in 2020, when Lehanne spotted a new Facebook post placing him in Johannesburg. Incensed, 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.”

More than 70,000 people shared the post. It was picked up by South African anti-crime activist Ian Cameron, who posted it widely, sparking a viral response. Within hours, Imbayarwo was arrested at work.

“When it came to his arrest, I was on a video call with Ian telling me live what was happening,” Lehanne said. “I was shaking so much I couldn’t believe it. The next thing I’m seeing him in handcuffs. I just wanted to shout from the rooftops.”

Two years later, Imbayarwo was convicted and sentenced to two life terms. “If this long, traumatic journey’s taught me anything, it’s to never give up,” Lehanne said.

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