Sleeping with the Enemy: The Murder of Jayde Panayiotou

I won’t deny that marriage is hard.

Anyone who is currently or has previously been married can attest to the fact that this most sacred of bonds between two people can be difficult to sustain on the day-to-day.   You have to make room in your life for another person’s moods, opinions and dreams, and when you don’t see eye to eye, it’s not like you can snap your fingers and make them vanish.  (Well, unless you’re King Henry VIII) 

But:  If you’ve married the right person, there will be more days when it clicks than when it doesn’t.  And when it clicks, it really clicks.  I courted my wife for 5 years before I proposed, and it was another 18 months before we tied the knot.  But because we were both 100% sure of our union, we have been fantastically happy from Day One, except when we fight over which is the True Trilogy, Star Wars or The Lord of The Rings.  To steal a line from the biography of Mötley Crüe, of all places:  “My wife is like my air…  Without her, I cannot live.”

So then it is very difficult and upsetting for me to read about the murder of Jayde Panayiotou, and the new twist this case has now taken.

A recap, for those of you who may not have been following the story from the beginning:  On the morning of Tuesday 21 April, Jayde Panayiotou (née Inggs) disappeared from in front of the apartment complex in Port Elizabeth in which she shared a unit with her husband Christopher.  Mrs Panayiotou was waiting for a friend to pick her up and take her to the girls’ high school where she worked as a teacher.  For a day, South Africa was in a frenzy, as #FindJayde became a leading trend overnight.  Everyone I know was reposting and asking for help in locating this young lady.  It was like a movie where Channing Tatum was sure to find her and return her to the empty arms of her waiting husband.

Sadly, real life is sometimes a bitch:  Jayde’s body was found in a field on the morning of 22 April, after she had been shot dead.

My wife and I discussed the case after learning of this horrific outcome, and we exchanged all the thoughts two hard-bitten South Africans would when discussing another crime in a country where it has become all too common:

-       She probably didn’t wait inside the complex gate, as she should have.

-       Photos were released of men withdrawing money at two ATMs using Jayde’s bank card.  Thus, robbery was a likely motive for her abduction.  (It should be noted here that the total amount stolen was 1,700 South African Rand, which is a little over 140 US Dollars at the time of this writing.  Apparently, Mrs Panayiotou’s life was worth less than an NFL replica jersey)

-       Given that the former Ms Inggs was not an unattractive lady, there was a better-than-even chance that she had been raped prior to her murder.  This may have been a motive, as well.

We can enter into a discussion later about the state of affairs in my homeland at a later stage.  Yes, it is very tragic that we assumed that Jayde Panayiotou had been taken from outside her home by two men who had either been after money or sex and had likely extracted both from her against her will before her death, but this is the reality of South Africa in 2015. 

But, in my opinion, the revelations that followed were more than tragic.

After a suspect was apprehended on the 29^th of April, one day after Jayde was buried, things took a turn in a direction usually reserved only for soap operas:  It was revealed that Christopher Panayiotou had likely hired the two gentlemen who had perpetrated the crime.  In other words:  This “man” had paid two guys to kill his wife.

This boggles my mind, it honestly does.  This couple had been together 11 years.  This man had likely told his wife he loves her countless times over this period, and she had probably told him the same.  They had been lovers, and she had taken him into her embrace with all the trust in the world.  They had shared laughter, tears, disappointments and dreams by the hundreds.  They had likely even discussed having children together, the ultimate symbol of two people’s love for one another.

And then…  Then this man paid two scumbags to subject his wife to untold terror before ending her life, a life that had barely even begun.

How do you, as a husband, think back on all the memories you share with your wife, and then decide you are okay with putting an end to them in such a violent and horrific way?  You don’t even have the excuse of a crime of passion, of an argument gone wrong or a disagreement that went too far.  You sat down and came to an agreement with two bottom feeders as to what the life of your so-called beloved is worth in fiscal terms, and probably tried to bargain with them to bring the number down.  The manner in which his wife was to die was decided upon in the same way that he would discuss how much he would pay for a second-hand car.

This is, clearly, the part that has horrified me the most.  How is one so callous about death?  I have had my days in bad traffic where I felt like I could easily end the life of the idiot who had just cut me off and put the lives of my family in danger.  But, if ever presented with the opportunity to do so, even if I was told that there would not be a single consequence to myself upon the death of this moron, I would not be able to end his life.  A basic human sense of compassion, I think, prevents you from doing that unless it’s kill-or-be-killed.  (Or kill-or-your-children-will-be-killed) 

Now, this desire not to kill another person is there with any pre-existing emotional ties.  How do you make this decision when the stakes are infinitely higher, the decision that a person you have intimately shared half your life with must die?  Further confirmed reports state that Christopher Panayiotou was having an affair with an employee of his, an employee who bore a striking visual similarity to his wife.  Was he so distant from his wife that he was able to separate himself emotionally from her murder?  Had he found a proxy for her in an employee who was more than willing to sleep her way to the top?  Did his wife find out about his affair, and threaten to clean him out in divorce court?  Was there a sizable policy on her life, as is rumoured to be true?

Or is he just a garden variety asshole, where the value of the life of others is secondary to the needs of his penis and/or his wallet?

No matter how much you have grown apart from another person, surely there is a solution other than claiming a life.  Perhaps I am a romantic and an idealist, but people are not cars or cell phones or insurance policies, things that can be cashed out or traded in when they outlive their usefulness.  By all means, if a relationship is toxic, then eliminate it from your life.  You are doing yourself a favour, and likely doing a favour for the person with whom the relationship exists as well, even if they don’t always realize it.  But key here is the concept of eliminating a relationship, rather than a life.  No matter how badly things end up in a friendship or a marriage or whatever, perspective is key. 

And that’s my take on it.  Before I start rambling uncontrollably – Cue the Peanut Gallery:  “Too late!!” – I will leave off here.  I promise next time I'll be back to rambling about something suitably trivial.  But I just had to get this one off my chest.

Just be nice to your loved ones, guys.  It’s not a lot to ask.