Mystery of the cyber-lover, 83

HE'S an 83-year-old retired naval engineer from Table View in Cape Town.

She's a 51-year-old goat farmer from Walkerville, south of Johannesburg.

They met in cyberspace through Facebook four months ago.

And, ever since, John Robertson Naisby and Zaheera Wookey have had a blossoming online relationship, sending romantic e-mails and calling each other pet names.

February 15 was supposed to be their first face-to-face meeting - celebrating her recent birthday and Valentine's Day.

So he told his 76-year-old wife, Sinie Naisby, he was off to Gauteng to meet a woman he met online, picked up a supply of Viagra and booked a one-way ticket to OR Tambo International Airport.

But that was the last time Naisby's family saw or heard from him. Now a desperate search is under way with Western Cape and Gauteng police working together to find him.

Sinie has opened a missing person's report at Table View Police Station after large sums of money were drawn from her normally frugal husband's bank account two days after he left and she has heard nothing from him.

Wookey, however, claims to only have seen him twice since he arrived.

Warrant-officer Eben Noble from the Table View police confirmed that a missing person's case had been opened and that police were investigating.

He said formal requests had been sent to the De Deur police station to head up the Gauteng leg of the search.

On Monday Wookey was arrested for the possession of illegal arms and ammunition by De Deur police when they questioned her at her home about her involvement with Naisby.

Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Tshisikhawe Ndou confirmed that an unlicensed shotgun and various rounds of ammunition had been confiscated from a safe on her property. The charges were later withdrawn and Ndou was unable to explain why.

Wookey also gave police a cream jacket and sunglasses Naisby allegedly left behind in her car.

The family has appointed Naisby's nephew, Martin du Plessis, a private investigator for community organisation e-blockwatch, to find him .

Du Plessis told the Sunday Times that CCTV footage showed Wookey and Naisby leaving the airport together.

"She pushes the trolley with his suitcase and shoulder bag and he carries his jacket over his arm. That was at exactly 3.01pm," said Du Plessis.

He has also managed to access e-mails between Naisby and Wookey. One reveals instructions to Wookey to keep their schedule clear on February 15, as he would be tired from travelling, and to make dinner plans for the following evening.

In another, Naisby also offered to help with the goat farming, despite having a history of back problems. "He was definitely going to be on [Wookey's] plot for some time," said Du Plessis.

But Wookey claimed she dropped Naisby off at the Eastgate Mall, where he was supposed to meet another woman, known only as Rita.

Although initially refusing to comment, Wookey denied having anything to do with Naisby's disappearance.

"The police are investigating and I don't want anything to do with this," she said on the phone.

Later, when the Sunday Times visited her at her home in Walkerville, she explained their relationship.

Asked how they met on Facebook, Wookey said: "You can meet people all over the world on Facebook, can't you?"

After first meeting online, she said, they exchanged e-mail addresses and spoke once or twice a week.

"I would drop him a line but he would send me little stories."

She said "Rita" lived in Vereeniging but could not pick Naisby up because she was working.

Wookey claims she only saw Naisby again three days later at the Spar in Walkerville, where they had arranged to meet, and they drank cool drinks in her car.

She said he then waited for a taxi to take him to his son in Rustenburg.

Wookey left him at the Spar to return to the fleamarket where she sells her goats. She said she was "deliberately" late to meet Naisby because she did not want to see him any longer.

"He is not my type. He is more like a father, you know, in terms of the age," said Wookey.

She said Naisby told her he was 72 but, after meeting him, she realised he was much older.

In their e-mails Naisby apparently told her he had a son in Rustenburg, another in Australia and a daughter he had lost contact with. But, Wookey said, Naisby never mentioned his wife in Cape Town.

Du Plessis said there was no sign of a "Rita" on Naisby's e-mail account and that Naisby does not have a son who lives in Rustenburg.

Naisby's wife was too distraught to be interviewed.

Du Plessis is appealing to the public to call him on 083 453 3484 with any information