Suspicion and Local Superstitions

Is that ghost mountain? That' ghost mountain Tell me a bit about that mountain. The name Ghost mountain comes from people staying there and it was a secret burial place And they said the mountain was haunted At the southern end of the jagged Leombo mountains is a peak with a peculiar shape that looms over this corner of South Africa. High on its slopes is a sacred cave where generations of local chiefs are buried, their mummified bodies wrapped in black bullskins. If you go there you be You getaten you get assaulted by the ghosts and the forefathers and stuff like that. That was the myth of the story of Gost Mountain. Beliefs like these remain deeply rooted in this part of Kazula Natal, a large province and the Zulu homeland on South Africa's eastern flank. It's a superstitious place. Traditional healers are consulted rather than medical doctors Healers known as Sangomas commune with ancestral spirits to diagnose problems physical or emotional people are still here, believe it or not are still believes in wiches And yeah, if you want to get in big trouble and you tell one out, I will go to the Samboma and I will lawer you. Lawyer means ulu means I will put a case on you. They will k you for that. They take advantage of this The beauty of this landscape, its historic battlefields, pristine coastline and game reserves, are a magnet for tourists But beyond the fences of the high end lodgers, it's more like the wild West Poaching is rampant, organised crime is unchecked, the murder rate is among the highest in the country. And in recent years, there are increasing reports of something more sinister still People have started. disappear There's a market for, let's say white women. What they do is they wait for a lifetime. You could have be the first one today, walking, taking pictures He they would start talking to each other. We saw a white lady going out of the gate of Goast Mountain or wherever. she's walking alone. Come. They have a market for everybody. There's a market for you right now as you sit here. They're just waiting for the right time to take you. My name is Jane Flanagan, Africa correspondent for The Times. I'm in KQazula Natal to investigate the disappearance of a seventy one year old British tourist, Laora McSawley. On september twenty seventh, twenty twenty five She took a walk near Ghost Mountain And then She vanished The search for a missing seventy year old tourist has entered its fifth day at Ghost Mountain inu Northern Gasur Nal The woman was lost. Over the past six months, I've been travelling across South Africa and the United Kingdom trying to discover what happened to Lorna McSawley The more questions I asked The stranger the story became It appeared to be linked to chilling traditions and a gruesome trade G. without it fre Nobody knew where she's what happened those Dumfailed I didn't think anything like that existed. let alone in this century. When the police investigation reached a dead end, I kept looking. and found leads they had missed or ignored From the Times and Sunday Times, this is Ghost Mountain Episode one Bewere Crocodiles. I've spent much of my career reporting on Africa, including the past eight years for the Times It's a vast and endlessly challenging beat I've stood on Chad's border with Sudan, interviewing families fleeing the genocide in Darfur I've walked with rangers in Eastern Congo risking their lives to protect endangered gerillas. I've interviewed African presidents, warlords, and rock stars few places can take you so quickly from humanity at its worst to its best. which is why nowhere has held my curiosity this continent It was in early october twenty twenty five that I started seeing reports about Lora McSawley's disappearance in Kazul Natal or Kesered in as South Africans call it. The local media became engrossed in the hunt for her. The search for a missing seventy year old tourist has entered its fifth day at Ghost Mountain. When She was last seen on Saturday, she was hiking at Ghost Mountain in Imcuusee in Kaura Nateal Pillilam Tboo has been I know the area well from reporting mostly on its volatile political scene and also from family holidays walking between its famous battlefields at D Sant Juana and Rok Drift Snorkeling in the Indian ocean and night safaris watching leather backacked turtles hauling themselves up the beach to lay their eggs As the news broke of Laora McSauly's disappearance, I was busy shadowing a leading South African politician for a profile the name. Ghost mountain caught my attention The woman was last seen when she went hiking with her husband who says he turned back halfway through the hike while she proceeded alone Missing persons' cases are depressingly common in this country. But a foreign tourist going missing near a well known hotel was always going to attract attention A huge hunt was mounted involving police and volunteers Dogs, drones boats and aircraft Theories came thick and fast. She'd been taken by a crocodile or another predator Or kidnapped and a ransom demand would come The hope that she was simply lost and would soon be found faded fast And strangely Nobody at the scene appeared to know much about her Reports in the media identified her by the wrong name and said she was from Germany rather than Britain Part of the reason information was so scarce was that Lorna's partner who'd been walking with her no longer seem to be there She has not been on scene, so I personally have not been in contact with him or had any discussions with him. It' to kind of aid in the search, you know what type of person she was, what would she have done in you know a situation if she had gotten lost. You know, unfortunately, without that information, also does make our search a little bit more difficult because we can't quite predict what she might have done When someone goes missing, it is important to know as much as possible about them. to understand how they might cope Are they physically fit and capable resesourceful Doould they panic or stay calm? When the official search couldn't find these answers, I started digging. I looked into Laorna McSawley's background and that of her partner to see whether either held clues as to what had happened I discovered she was born not far from London. So my journey begins not in Kuzulu Natal, but in Hertfordshire on a quiet suburban street in the town of Royston She was a fun loving person. I mean, she liked the room up when she came in And she loved the dance wildlife and music And she could be quiet Funny but also quite emotional att times Jeff Suward is Lora McSawley's brother I went to see him in March this year It aboutad as st I would It's any instant No know, I haven't had enough tea today, I don't think. I don't have a cup of tea is that right? Yes, thank you familyamily photographs and prints of World War II planes fill the walls of his home where we sit down for tea and biscuits Jeff is speaking about Lorna's disappearance for the first time He shows me a picture of her There's a good picture of her as you would like to be known with her tiny feet Yeah, yeentus V very very small. getet a away with ladybird shoes Laora and Jeff grew up not far from here in Hertfordshire after their parents separated The siblings were raised in different households and saw very little of one another It was only years later that their relationship deepened. I if you joined the arrmy more or less straight from schoolool. I believe she was in signals And when she got married, I didn't know her first husband After that, We became closer Lorna's time in the army took her to Northern Ireland Germany and Cyprus. The experience gave her a lifelong appetite for travel and adventure After her marriage ended in the mid nineteen nineties, Lorna met Leon Probert The man she would travel to South Africa with in september twenty twenty five He was not her husband, as had been reported, partner of thirty years and a decade older than her I have had several phone conversations with Leon Probert in recent months, and he was clearly uncomfortable talking about Lorna's disappearance. He declined to contribute to this series So I asked Jeff about their relationship He came from Bristol He's got that bristol accent play strong I was takaking Mick out of here once ago Oh, you're from Britittle You know, And he just sat there in that chair Stony faced no s of word No, we didn't know look at Lora and Leon lived in Devon, far from her family and friends Jeff would visit occasionally, though he told me he preferred to stay in a local guestthouse A photograph from one of those trips shows the three of them on a day out Jeff is smiling at the camera his arm around Lorna Leon stands stiffly apart from them, looking into the distance I thought she was happy because she stayed with him for thirty years and He was well connected woman and she had a brain on her. She had all the means possible Just leave it if she was unhappy. If I had to summer up, it would be resourceful, resilient and above all, loyal She was totally loyal From Devon, Lorna maintained several close and long standing friendships including with Gina They were at school together in their teens. I met Gina at her home in Southwest London Lona always sent beautiful birthday cards The inscription inside says at the bestest friend in the world. love and hope everything is always good for you And that's exactly the sort of person she was She put a huge store on her friendships So how did Leon fit into all these important friendships and relationships He didn't. Lorna used to like to come away for the weekend and Leon never came with her. She always came on her own. I think she liked come and just be herself and enjoy the friendships. I think like a lot of people in relationships, she was a different version of herself. She was, I would say, not as bubbly, more subdued I did ask her once if you're that unhappy, why do you stay And I feel quite bad now that that probably shut down the dialogue Had they done a lot of wildlife holidays or what had been sort the building up to this one No, um They've been to Greece a lot. They've been to Egypt Singapore You knew about the South African holiday that was coming up, that seemed like quite a big one for them. Yeah. What a Laura mentioned about. Just that she was excited about seeing the Big five and taking lots of pictures. And we were looking forward to seeing them when she came back Lorna visited Jeff and his family shortly before that trip to South Africa and made an unexpected gesture Yes, that's when she gave the children the money She wrote two checks out three thousand pound each to the children And I said to her, whyy Why are you doing it? And she said, I might not get another chance Wood for wood which I thought was a strange thing to say. So it was Shortly before her trip to South Africa, she does it seemed like it was planned that she would give a gift to your No, no. They're not very close, my children and Lorna. but I don't know if she was worried about me or my health or. And some sort of vision about herselfl Yeah But it was only a few days before she went on holiday to South Africa. And she went missing, I think twenty seventh In calls with her other friends, I heard about Lorna's passion for animals and nature Her love of dancing and her ready sense of humor No one saw her as reckless or naive Lora and Leon left the UK on september twenty second, twenty twenty five for a packed two week coach tour of South Africa with the travel agent Tuy After spending their first few days spotting wildlife in Kruger National Park They travel through the tiny kingdom of Eswatini formerly known as Swaziland before crossing back into South Africa and arriving in Makkuusee. It's a tiny rural town of fewer than six thousand people that sits in the shadow of Ghost Mountain the ideal place to sav a more of the country's wild natural beauty They checked into a four star lodge at around lunchime on Saturday september twenty seventh Just a few hours later Laora McSawley had vanished I arrived in Kuaulu Natal on a hot humid day in january twenty twenty six It had been four months since Lora's disappearance and I was keen to discover what had happened to her cross the Tela River into the remote rural north of the province It was this breathtaking scenery that inspired the Victorian adventure novel, King Solomon's Minds Tale of lost kingdoms and hidden treasure. in the distance Ghost mountain rises between the farms and reserves though it belongs to another world. But this is no tourist fantasy KQwazula Natal is a hotspot for organised crime, including rhino poaching, with gangs making fortunes from the illegal trade in Horn In the absence of effective policing, landowners employ their own well equipped security forces to protect infrastructure and wildlife Leopard tracks. How often do you see leopard? There's a lot of leopards. B they mine in night I have cameras all over the place. so you only see them at night. Franconeell is wide, gruff and impatient, a typical boh, Bur meaning farmer in Afrkans He speaks with a thick accent and often slips into Afrikans or Zulu when words escape him in English Francois heads security for the largest farm in the Mcuse area. He and his men regularly go up against rhino poaches and gangs stealing equipment. Mcz is actually it's a lawless toerm. Nobody looks after the lawyer. I mean, dockers gets lost. casees doesn't get investigated He wears shorts, leather boots and a khaki shirt stretched across his vast torso. A gun sits at his belt Laora Mcaley disappeared on land Francois protects He was among the first to be alerted and offered to show me the route she took that day you wanted to go to this dam, I'll take you to this dam with a man eating crocodilies. Lora and her partner Leon set off for a walk from their hotel, the Ghost Mountain Inn, at around two thirty on Saturday september twenty seventh It was a windy afternoon A boat trip on the nearby Gazzini Dam to see crocodiles and hippos had been cancelled Instead, they headed on foot for the nearest lake Dorwnna brought her camera. but not her phone The two and a half mile route was considered safe enough for the hotel to provide them with a route map and let them walk it alone. So is this sugar cane What is This is sugar cane we here now. And this is where they'd walked to this point together. Yes. And then around about year, we decided no he's going to turn around and go back come back the way we've just come. So you went all the way back And he went into the del. About fifteen minutes into their walk, Leon turned back He told me he found it too hot and had forgotten his hat Lorna carried on alone In her seventies, fair skinned and prone to burning in the sun, she was now heading by herself into the South African bush Her friends told me she was not especially fit. Yeah. She had to tend this ro. She was supposed to take the right here. Walk around the pivot It's just not for. She had to turn right and she had to be at the dam. But she made ye, yeah, she made the wrong decision We don't know how that she could read the map or she made a mistake According to the hotel map, Lora should have taken a track on her right towards the lake But she was soon lost and way off the route entirely It may be that she was affected by the heat and humidity. She was carrying no water O perhaps the tall sugar cane fields confused her sense of direction. But luckily, she came across a farmhouse where she asked for help. Sp,p What I remember it was around about three o'clock the afternoon When the dogs was by, I've got a lot of dogs, was balking First Prince Lou is one of the managers on the farm where Lorna was walking Beneath a baseball cap His face is deeply tanned and his nose misshapen from an earlier rugby career His farmhouse is about a mile from Ghost Mountain Inn the hotel where Lorna and Leon were staying. My wife went out of the house and she came back and said, there's a lady here. with a map that wants directions to the dam. so look at the crocodiles and the hebush So I went out and I I spoke to the lady and I told that she's totally on theong wrong way. She's got to go back with the way she came off and I'll show her on the map which way to turn. So how did she seem to you? W she hot? Was she stressed No, no I guess okay you could see she's hartt because she was walking, you know But she wasn't stressed. She was gone spoke fluently. there was no nothing in a voice that s he I've got a problem You understand it's weird How would that it Was it unusual for you to see a visitor, a guest from the hotel Walking around the sugar cane. No I've seen it a couple of times Sometimes you see just one guy. A little guy and a woman I've never seen a woman in a So you offered her a lift to the dam or back to the hotel, but she said she wanted a walk. No, she wanted to walk Kus told me he waited at his gate to make sure Lorna was on the correct track. before going inside. We don't know if she stayed on the right path. ever reached the lake Lucus is the last person we know. to have seen Lorna alive. Ghost Mountain Inn by five thirty PM Leon felt uneasy The walk should have taken nineteen minutes at most. Three hours had passed He told the hotel that Lorna was missing A senior staff member first drove the route, expecting to find Lorna exhausted. When she didn't, the alarm went out to the police and across the local farm's radio network calling for help Soon a hunt was underway, workers, landowners and neighbours converged on the area, including Cus night I' of a sein at talk I got a call from a guy that said they are looking for the lady, the lady is gone And so I grabbed my kids and my wife and everybody and we started looking for the lady. The farm's head of security, Francoisell was leading the team of volunteers. elve vehicles driving up and down. all the fonts When you get a report like that, a missing tourist. And it's a Saturday night. is the feeling like we must do it, or are people? No, we must do it. Because we know the area, this is not the place to be G Glosky. We know the urgent of a white lady walking alone in Zulland is not I usually say this is Zululand, not Disneyland. We know what is going to happen. You're either going to get mocked or peicked up. What has marked me? Rob As night fell on Ghost Mountain, the search team had found nothing and were beginning to fear the worst until they stumbled across the first big clue, which we'll hear more about after the break On the evening of september the twenty seventh, twenty twenty five Local volunteers had spent two hours searching for Lorna McSawley in the sugar canane fields beneath Ghost Mountain Francois Nell, who heads security on the farm where Lorna went missing was directing the volunteer hunt. It was getting dark really soon We decided to call in the drones which is thermal drones to look for Maybe she's sitting somewhere inviting for us or she's scared or whatever, but When we put it up to drones, we couldn't find any heat along the rivers, in the fields The thermal drones would have detected the heat of a person in the bush They found nothing But then Cse Princelu, the local farmer who was the last person to see Lorna, made a vital discovery. He was out searching with his wife in their car. his two daughters were searching in their own My youngest child saw a paper frumbled up next to the roat and she told her sister stop, stop, stop there's of paper. They found the map When we found the map and we saw it was Rink cot and stuff like that, we knew, okay, there's o new. M one place giving out maps like that This was the hotel map that Lorna had tried to follow discarded on the side of a track about half a mile from Cus's farmhouse When we found the map, it was like, okay Then we add a direction. And then we knew she had to be here She had to be or she had to pause here. So that was actually the bestase lead we had on that stage Now they had an area to focus on. There were still people driving right through the night looking for her. U and down In every hour they found m safe No, they didn't find anything and So yeah, that is when we decided we will regroup the next morning and start calling the forward in and go for reinforcements First light the hunt resumed. The full force of the police and local private security networks was deployed Tracking dogs, drones, boats, a helicopter, fixed wing aircraft, and scores of volunteers on foot Laorna's partner, Leon Probert, made a statement to police. But he gave the search team little other information to work with The only photograph they could circulate was the hotel's copy of Lorna's passport. He was very dull, as I remember. He was sitting in the police van and the policeman was my friend, as' one of my best friends And he said that he was sitting there like a puppet just like standing in front of him where I will be like Berserk I will tell you listen, I'm going to walk and look for my wife. I will walk in this bushes. I don't I would not even be scared, even if I'm a foreigner That made him suspicious Shortly after Lora went missing, Leon was already making plans to leave, but Lorna had been carrying their passports in her bag when she disappeared. Staff from Tuy who flew to South Africa to support him helped him get emergency travel documents to fly home On september thirtieth, Three days after Lawn had disappeared I received a press statement from Ghost Mountain Inn that said Leon Probert had left the area A week later Laora's friend Gina received a phone call. It was on Tuesday, the seventh of October My mobile phone rang and it was Lorna's mobile number and it was actually Leon on the phone saying that something dreadful had happened and Lorna was missing in South Africa. And obviously, I was really shocked. And queried what had happened And he told me that she had gone out on her own to go and find a lake with a hippo in it And I questioned that and said, I thought it was unusual for Anyone o to go on their own walking in the bush in South Africa, let alone a woman And he told me that she had insisted she was going My first question to him was, when did this happen? And he said, Saturday So I assumed he meant the fourth And it wasn't until I looked online and saw the newspaper reports. and News Africa television interviews that I realised she'd gone missing on the twenty seventh of September Gina contacted the search team on the ground in Kazu Natal. And at that point I thought it might actually help them look for her. I had no idea. it was almost two weeks later What I don't understand is why a partner of thirty years would not want to stay in the area and be there if she was found because You would want to be there to look after your partner, wouldn't you You wouldn't want to say I want to go home The same day Leon rang Gina, he also called Jeff, Lora's brother. My phone rang and it came up Laora. So I said Hi Lura, how are you? in I knew you come back from holiday. And Mr. Probert said It's not Lora, it's me And I've got some bad news for you And he said She went missing and told the story about how he went with her and then went back to the hotel. Just in deep shock at the time And it wasn' until later on when it all sank in I thought, you I fancy leaving your own? in a strange country, in the wilderness with all sorts of nasty sayanging about or could be potentially The last time I spoke to Leon was in April when I phoned with an update on what I had found out on my trip to Ghost Mountain He asked me not to contact him again saying he preferred not to be reminded about what had happened to Lora. I told Jeff, Lora's brother And he said he wasn't surprised to hear that. As far as Leon was concerned Uh he wants to draw a line under it all bit soon but he didn't want to face up to What happened After the hunt produced no clues except for the map. Leon's departure from the walk with Lora and then from the scene was drawing local suspicion about his possible involvement in her disappearance. But it was too far fetched couldould an elderly man possibly plot a crime during a coach tour of a country he'd never visited before During my several phone calls with Leon Probert, he showed little emotion about the case except in one conversation when his voice broke As he spoke about the guilt he felt at leaving Lorna to walk alone If I had stayed with her, he told me The chances are nothing would have happened Police investigations stalled, Francoisneell and his team ook again at the various theories about Lorna's fate An animal attack, a robbery and they ruled them out but rumors and local talk began to center on one Unbelievable explanation When was it you really started having a bad feeling about what had happened I thought, you know, If this lady was just lost Somebody will see A local cattle boy Letits just you wandered so far off along the river There's so many people fishing and they will say, Oh, we saw her, you know, we saw this white lady and she went in this direction Let' let's say she ended up In the district route, they will always be informed There was no troace of her We spoke to locals as I said. They didn't even knew she was walking there. and Yeah this way I started saying, listen I think we must look at this finger in a different way As I said earlier, This is a place where traditional beliefs and superstitions dominate someome of the community people They are very superstitious They are very afraid of this tour doctors. you know this witchcraft stuff And they told me about four, five days after it If you haven't found something by now You will never find that. Porters deal in facts. Deper I dug into Lorna McSawley's disappearance the more I realized that I had to take the beliefs of this place seriously I came to understand that it was these local myths that could in fact reveal the truth of what happened to her ext time on Ghost Mountain. We are also scared for our lives because now we are not able to to go out at night because you never know when you are going to go missing on yourself. According to sources we have Nine l modies. I found through the is. The daught said to me, it was like aliens had just come and just taken them. And I said to her that you can't What do you mean? sureurely there's something And she said, no There's nothing From the Times and Sunday Tes, this is Ghost Mountain a series for the story I'm your host, Jane Flanagan. The producer is Harry Stott The executive producers are Taren Segeull and Kate Lambll It sound design and composition is by Maal Lassetto We'll be back tomorrow with episode two of Ghost Mountain