Gauteng mother opens up after both her daughter and granddaughter are murdered

Annie Ash didn’t hesitate to give her stamp of approval when the young man asked for her daughter Chantelle’s hand in marriage.

“I loved him like my own son,” Annie says. What’s more, he was the father of her beloved seven-month-old granddaughter, Tasneem.

But just five weeks later, instead of celebrating 20-year-old Chantelle’s wedding, Annie (53) was arranging a double funeral for her only daughter and her precious grandchild.

Chantelle and Tasneem’s bodies were found in a room at a guesthouse on the road between Mokopane and Marken in Limpopo recently. They’d both been strangled.  

Annie was left reeling – but that wasn’t the end of it: their alleged killer is the man to whom Annie had entrusted her daughter.

Neesham Mohammed Nasir (29) was arrested a week later in Brixton, Johannesburg, and has appeared in court in Mokopane charged with the murder of his wife and baby.

Chantelle and Tasneem’s bodies were found in a room at a guesthouse on the road between Mokopane and Marken in Limpopo recently. They’d both been strangled, allegedly by Chanetelle's fiancé, Neesham Mohammed Nasir. (Photo: Supplied)

“I don’t understand it,” a distraught Annie says. “Who’d do something like that to an innocent child and her mom? The only thing that consoles me is that they’re angels now and not suffering any pain.”

She breaks down and reaches for a tissue. “Chantelle was a wonderful mom, especially for one so young. My darling child had her whole life ahead of her.”

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Her daughter met Neesham, a Bangladeshi national, five years ago when she went to buy groceries at his shop in Modimolle.

“I saw how much my child loved him and I also came to love him,” says Annie, who raised Chantelle and her brother, Wayne (19), on her own after her husband died.

Annie recalls being shocked initially when Chantelle told her she was pregnant. “But later I realised it was a blessing, I was happy to become a grandma. Tasneem was my sunshine child, my angel.”

Annie, a childminder from Hammanskraal in Gauteng, didn’t get to see her daughter and granddaughter often, because they were living with Neesham in Mokopane in a rented room.

“We talked regularly on WhatsApp or did video calls. She’d put Tasneem on too and she’d make these sweet gurgling noises,” she recalls.  

Annie didn’t attend Chantelle and Neesham’s wedding, which took place unexpectedly on 9 December last year. Neesham had called Annie that same day to ask if he could marry her daughter.

“I gave my consent and that same evening they were married in a Muslim ceremony in Mokopane. Apparently it was a small wedding with just a few friends.

“I didn’t really talk to her on the day of her wedding. She just sent me a message to say thank you for giving my consent.”

The last time Annie saw her daughter alive was on the Sunday after Christmas when Chantelle and Tasneem brought her a bottle of perfume as a Christmas gift. Chantelle looked like “her old self”, she says, and there seemed little cause for concern.

Shortly afterwards Chantelle sent her mom a WhatsApp saying she and Neesham had had words. “I sent her a message saying I loved her and that was the last time I heard from her.

“On the day she died I still tried to call her, little knowing she was probably already dead. I just wanted to talk with my child and find out how she was doing.”

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When she couldn’t get hold of Chantelle, Annie contacted Neesham. “He told me he didn’t know where they were. I was crazy with worry.”

Annie says she didn’t know the family had plans to go to the guesthouse, where the last terrible moments went down for the young mom and baby.  

“When the police called me to say they’d found two bodies and suspected they were Chantelle and Tasneem, I just prayed and asked God that it should please not be my children.”

But it was.

Chantelle was found lying naked on her stomach next to the bed. Her hands were tied behind her back with cable ties. Little Tasneem was under her mom’s body. Both mother and baby were covered with a blanket.

“I didn’t even recognise my child when I had to identify her. Her face was swollen. I had to look twice to make sure,” Annie says.

Chantelle and Tasneem were buried at Zandfontein cemetery in Pretoria on Tuesday 19 January.

Chantelle’s death is also a big blow to her younger brother, Wayne. “He can’t get over it,” Annie says. “They were very close.”

According to police spokesperson Moatshe Ngoepe, Neesham, Chantelle and Tasneem were dropped off at the lodge in an unidentified grey car.

“They rented a room and told the receptionist they’d be leaving the next day,” Ngoepe says.

“In the morning, the receptionist decided to check on the couple and their baby. That was when she found the bodies.”

• Neesham is due back in the Mokopane magistrate’s court on Friday 29 January. He is in custody.