MY CHILD GONE FOREVER

A heartbroken father is struggling to make sense of why his ex-gir allegedly killed his daughter

- SIPHOKAZI ZAMA

IT FELT like he just couldn't drive fast enough. The three-and-a-half-hour journey from Polokwane to Johannesburg seemed to grow by the minute and he spent every second of it praying his little girl was safe and sound.

Elie Challita had left four-year-old Nada-Jane at home in Joburg, with his girlfriend, Amber Hughes, while he went house hunting in Polokwane.

While he was on the road earlier that day, Amber (23) had called him in a rage after discovering he'd been chatting with other women on WhatsApp. She accused him of being unfaithful and threatened to destroy everything he held dear.

"You broke my heart, I'm going to burn yours," she told him before hanging up.

"When she said that, my knees went weak," he tells YOU.

Elie (35) kept trying to call Amber, but he received only her voicemail.

"I was desperate, I didn't know what was going on. I begged her not to do anything. I even sent her voice and text messages saying, 'Don't hurt the baby, kill me instead. The baby is innocent. But she never answered.

Frantic with worry, he called a friend and asked him to go to his house to check on Amber and Nada-Jane. The friend, who's asked for his name to be kept out of the media, told Elie that Amber wouldn't let him onto the property.

He broke down the gate and found her sitting in the lounge, bleeding from her wrist and naked from the waist down.

The friend alleges that when he asked where the little girl was, Amber pointed to the bathroom and he found her floating face-down in the bathtub, the tap still running.

Nada-Jane was rushed to Netcare Mulbarton Hospital, but died shortly after her arrival.

"When I got to the hospital, my friend's wife burst into tears. I knew then that my baby was dead, Elie says. "I went to see my daughter. I hugged her, I kissed her, I apologised to her and said I'd find her killer.