EXCLUSIVE: Siam Lee's mother tells of heartache

Siam Lee's mother has told of her heartache as police arrested a man they believe is linked to her abduction and murder two weeks ago.

Carmen Nans Lee said that she had been numbed by her loss‚ having imagined what her daughter suffered in her final hours.

The mysterious vanishing of the 20-year-old exposed a secret brothel in a posh Durban neighbourhood. The Crawford College matriculant was last seen outside a house‚ barefoot and in a summer dress. Initial appeals by her family described an "abduction" from the house by a spurned lover.

Speaking to TimesLIVE on Thursday‚ Lee said she was heartbroken.

"It is still a bitter pill for me to swallow when I think about what must've happened to her while she was being harboured‚" she said.

"I am dead on the inside. My daughter is still gone … She was such a gentle girl‚" she said.

In the first interview since her daughter went missing two weeks ago‚ Lee revealed that a bitter legal dispute had sent them into abject poverty. She said she was informed of the arrest by police on Thursday morning.