Missing woman now a wanted fugitive
Pini Bothoko | Wednesday April 12, 2017 15:53
On March 8, Roberts-Otto was reported missing and the following day her car was found abandoned near Gaborone Dam, which led to people suspecting she might have drowned.
But the mystery of her disappearance has taken a complete twist, as the Urban police are now looking for her as a fugitive following her employer reporting missing money from their accounts.
In an interview with Mmegi, Urban police station commander, superintendent Obapotswe Moremi said they were looking for Roberts-Otto as a fugitive as her employer has opened a case of stealing by servant against her.
He said Roberts-Otto was working as an accountant for Desert Secretariat Company in Gaborone and is suspected to have fled with the company’s P1.4 million.
“Investigations on the matter are still ongoing to locate her. We do not know where she is, but we suspect she might have crossed the border. We are yet to find out where exactly she went because she left some of her documents behind,” Moremi said.
He said Roberts-Otto faces a possible five years’ imprisonment if found guilty.
Naledi police station commander, superintendent King Tshebo told Mmegi that they were still looking for Roberts-Otto as a missing person.
He said investigations were ongoing to locate the Metsimotlhabe-born woman who is married to a South African and they reside there (South Africa) with their family.
Tshebo said their investigations have revealed that Roberts-Otto pretended to have drowned at Gaborone Dam whilst she had escaped and is believed to have skipped the border to Zimbabwe.
“We learnt from our reliable source that Roberts-Otto did not drown. The source told us that they were together that fateful day when she boarded a Zimbabwe-bound bus,” Tshebo said.
He said their reliable source, being Roberts-Otto’s friend, disclosed to them that she drove her from Gaborone Dam to the bus rank where she boarded a bus going to Zimbabwe.
“We are not sure if she really went to Zimbabwe because there are no records of her crossing at any of the borders hence investigations of her whereabouts are still ongoing,” Tshebo said.
Tshebo said they found Roberts-Otto’s car abandoned at the Gaborone Dam with her jacket by the ridge of the dam something, which shows that indeed she had pretended to have drowned.
He said on that fateful day, Roberts-Otto wrote a letter and gave it to her friend to give to her husband stating that she was in trouble and had decided to leave.
Asked what was the problem that she was talking about, Tshebo said she did not explain the problem in detail and where exactly she was going.
Recently, it was reported in the local media that in that letter, Roberts-Otto explained that back in 2010 she joined a cult called ‘The Church’ and to date has given the cult up to P10 million. In the letter, she further describes a scenario where her husband had enquired about the large sums of money in their joint bank account, which she had lied that it was funds from her work.
She confessed that the money belonged to their cult, The Church. “Remember when you asked me about the money in our account and I told you it was for work? I lied. It was their money,” read the letter.
Roberts-Otto further confessed why she finally decided to disappear, saying that she stole about P300,000 from her workplace to give to The Church and that one of her bosses was threatening to report her to the police.
“Misleading the police is an offence because she pretended to have drowned. We searched for her in the dam and she was nowhere to be found,” Tshebo said.
Tshebo pleaded with members of the public with any information to help them to locate Roberts-Otto so that she can face the law.
“No matter the trouble one is faced with, they should not desert their families. She should come back home to her family and face the allegations levelled against her.