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| ISBN-13: | 9781927322772 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Otago University Press |
| Publication date: | 08/30/2016 |
| Sold by: | INDEPENDENT PUB GROUP - EPUB - EBKS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Murder That Wasn't
The Case of George Gwaze
By Felicity Goodyear-Smith, Gillian Tewsley
Otago University Press
Copyright © 2015 Felicity Goodyear-SmithAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-927322-77-2
CHAPTER 1
Who is Charlene?
CHARLENE NYASHA MAKAZA was born in Zimbawe on 7 July 1996 to Senzeni Maposa and Edgar Makaza. The couple had another daughter, Charmaine Chiedza Makaza, born 26 November 1994. Senzeni was not well and was unable to look after her baby. When Charlene was seven months old, Senzeni's older sister Sifiso and her husband George Evans Gwaze took Charlene into their care. George and Sifiso already had four children of their own: sons George Tendai Gwaze (George Junior, 14) and Tafadzwa Evans Gwaze (11), and daughters Maggie Gwaze (16) and Nothando Rumbidzai Musesengwa Gwaze (10). Sifiso also had a daughter from a previous relationship, Lilian Nokuthlula Maposa (20). For Charlene, her aunt and uncle Sifiso and George were now her parents, and her cousins were her older siblings.
While her sister Charmaine was a bright, healthy little girl, baby Charlene was not. At one year old she was failing to thrive: she was tiny, and was found to have an enlarged liver, spleen and lymph nodes. Her family doctor noted that both her parents had a 'history of immunodeficiency'. She was prescribed antibiotic and antifungal drugs which she took regularly for most of her childhood. By November 1997 her condition had improved a little. Charlene continued to see her family doctor on a regular basis, suffering from frequent coughs and colds, headaches, tonsillitis and episodes of diarrhoea; on at least one occasion associated with the passing of blood. She received all her childhood vaccines, including protection against tuberculosis.
In June 1998, just before Charlene turned two, her mother Senzeni died from tuberculosis. She was 35. The length of her illness is recorded on her death certificate as two months, although she had been unwell for over two years. Charmaine, now aged four, also came to live with George and Sifiso, who treated her as their daughter; both girls called Sifiso 'Mum'. Two years later, in 2000, their father Edgar died at the age of 39, from kidney failure and blood poisoning. In hindsight, it is clear that the 'immune deficiency' suffered by this young couple and the illnesses that subsequently took their lives were the result of human immunodeficiency virus infection. HIV/AIDS is a taboo subject in many parts of Africa. Among the public there is a huge fear of being 'found out' that they have HIV, or that there is HIV infection in their family, so it is often not formally diagnosed or, when it is, it is kept secret – even at death.
What is also clear is that Charlene acquired HIV from her mother – either in the womb or possibly through breastfeeding – while her older sister Charmaine escaped the disease. It is likely that Senzeni and Edgar acquired HIV sometime between the births of Charmaine in November 1994 and Charlene in July 1996. Charlene was not diagnosed as HIV positive, but she was given daily doses of the antibiotic cotrimoxazole from the age of three to nine years – a treatment that has been shown to reduce deaths from HIV in African children. If a person has progressive HIV or AIDS, they may get an acute and overwhelming sepsis in response to infection from microorganisms (bacteria, virus or fungus) that a normal person would be able to fight off easily. This is the basis for giving routine antibiotics.
In 2004 Charlene's family doctor performed a blood test to assess her T-lymphocytes – a test that monitors the status of HIV-positive people – although she had never actually been tested to determine whether or not she was HIV positive. The results did not indicate that Charlene had HIV disease, although the ratio of types of T-lymphocytes in Charlene's blood suggested this was a possibility. Clearly the family doctor suspected that she might be HIV positive, given her condition since birth and the nature of the illnesses that killed her parents, the routine antibiotic treatment he prescribed for her, and the fact that he arranged for the T-lymphocyte test to be done. Sifiso and George also may have considered the possibility that Charlene might be HIV-positive, but this was never formally diagnosed nor discussed with them by their GP.
Antiviral drugs are now available that can prevent the progression of HIV; however, these are very expensive and would not have been obtainable for Charlene in Zimbabwe. In developing countries, between a third and half of HIV-infected children who do not receive antiviral therapy die within the first two years of life. Children who survive the first two years may live up to 12 years without developing AIDS. Children brought up in poverty, though, have a much lower survival rate.
George Gwaze was born in Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe) in April 1952. A friend of his writes:
I grew up with George Gwaze in the dusty streets of a ghetto called Harare then, now Mbare. We went to Boys' Club together where we participated in various sport disciplines in both outdoor and indoor sports and went to St Francis Xavier College (Marist Kutama) for our secondary education. George was of exemplary character – quiet and religious. He was even an altar boy, helping the priests with Mass ... All of us came from poor backgrounds and literally pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps.
After four years of secondary education George passed the Cambridge School certificate examinations at Ordinary level. He completed his final two years of secondary education at Advanced level at Goromonzi High School on the eastern outskirts of Harare.
In 1974 at the age of 22 George enrolled to study veterinary science at the University of Ibadan in southwestern Nigeria. At that time there was a civil war in Rhodesia: the African majority was clamouring for total independence from the minority regime led by Prime Minister Ian Smith.
George completed a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine in 1979. He had first met Sifiso Maposa during his secondary school days, when he went to school with her brother Clement. After she left secondary school Sifiso had a daughter, Lilian Maposa, born in 1975. Later Sifiso and George became sweethearts, and she lived with him for some of the time while he was studying in Nigeria. Their first child, Maggie, was born in 1980.
Because of the war in his home country, George went to neighbouring Botswana where he worked for two years as a qualified veterinary surgeon. Rhodesia regained its independence as Zimbabwe in 1980 and by 1982 George was able to return home, where he continued to work as a vet. George and Sifiso married in 1983. By then Sifiso was pregnant again; she remained in Zimbabwe with her daughters while George went to the United Kingdom for a year, where he completed a Masters in Veterinary Science at the University of Liverpool. Their first son, George Junior, was born while George was in England.
When he returned to Zimbabwe, George was employed as the provincial veterinary officer for the government. The family purchased a large four-bedroom house in the capital city, Harare. More children followed: a second son, Tafadzwa in 1985 and daughter Nothando in 1987. By 1997, when baby Charlene joined the family, George and Sifiso were sleeping in the upstairs master bedroom, the two boys shared a room, Maggie had a room of her own, and Charlene and later Charmaine shared a room with Nothando. Sifiso's daughter Lilian had already left home: she was married in 1994, although the dowry was paid and the formal wedding took place in December 2000. Lilian and her husband, Irvine Kombora, were both professionals and ran their own family farm.
Charlene and Charmaine became part of the Gwaze family. According to Maggie, all the children had attended Blakiston Primary School, about a 10-minute drive or a 30-minute walk from their house. George was very protective of them and never allowed them to walk home because he thought it was not safe, even though it was a middle-class neighbourhood. He would drive 30 minutes from his workplace to pick them up from school and then drive them home. Maggie says, 'Charmaine and Charlene received the red carpet treatment from my dad; he even carried their little satchels for them to the car. They were always picked up on time from school and always got spoilt on the way home.' There were nearly 40 grandchildren in the extended family, and Charlene was the baby; according to Maggie, she soon learned to take advantage of this.
She knew everyone doted on her and she made sure her little voice was not missed in the family. Charmaine and Charlene seemed to get away with so much more with my mum making the excuse that they didn't have birth parents so we should treat them like little princesses. If anything, they were pretty spoilt!
Nothando and Charmaine confirm that Charlene was a favourite in the family. Her small stature and ill health may have contributed to the way her aunts and other relatives would bestow gifts and treats on her.
By the time the older children were completing high school, there was increasing trouble in Zimbabwe. In 1990 an amendment to the University of Zimbabwe Act gave the government more powers to interfere in the running of the universities, and there were accusations by staff and students of loss of academic freedom. During the 1990s there were an increasing number of student protests and mass expulsions of students: attending university in Zimbabwe was not a viable option. In 2000 the family arranged for Maggie to go to South Africa to study; she graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Business Science in Actuarial Science from the University of Cape Town. However, the family faced financial and political barriers that prevented her younger siblings from going to university outside of Zimbabwe.
The political climate in Zimbawe was increasingly destabilising, and life there was becoming untenable for the family. Lilian and Irvine Kombora decided to emigrate to New Zealand to give their children a better future. Irvine went first, in December 2001, and was joined by his wife Lilian and their son Bongani (Ronald) in March 2002. Initially Irvine worked on a farm in Invercargill.
With the national economy in ruins and the disruption of farms in Zimbabwe in the 1990s, it became more difficult for George to work as a vet. He, too, wanted a better education for his children. In April 2002 George Junior, then aged 19, joined Lilian and her family in Southland. He had been educated at the prestigious Prince Edward School in Harare, a public school for boys founded in 1898. By the time George Junior attended it was a mixed-race school with whites, blacks and coloured students. He was an excellent tennis player, and as well as wanting to go to university, he hoped to pursue a career on the world tennis stage.
In September 2003 the Kombora family and George Junior moved to Christchurch, where there was a small Zimbabwean community. Lilian worked as an administrator at the Southern Institute of Technology. For some time Irvine worked as a packing operator for Fonterra; he subsequently ran his own company as a business consultant.
By August 2004 George had moved to Christchurch to join them. Skyrocketing inflation in Zimbabwe had rendered his savings worthless. He needed to work and earn money so that he could bring out his wife and the rest of his children. Back in Harare, in July 2004 Sifiso applied to the provincial magistrates court in Harare and was granted official custody of her nieces. In March 2005 she applied for New Zealand student visas for Charmaine and Charlene; these were granted in June. That year her other children emigrated – Nothando in May, Tafadzwa in July and Maggie in August 2005. Sifiso was the last to arrive in New Zealand in October 2005, accompanied by her adopted daughters Charmaine and Charlene, aged 11 and nine. According to Nothando, George told his wife to sell his car to pay for the girls' air tickets. They were unable to sell their big family home in Harare, which is now occupied by a relative.
Finally the family were all together again in their newly adopted country. They settled down in Christchurch, except for Maggie who moved to Auckland to work in her chosen career as an actuarial analyst. George started to retrain so that he could get his New Zealand registration as a vet, and he was also working as a production technologist with a biotechnology company. Lilian and Irvine now had two boys, Ronald and Nigel, and Tafadzwa lived with them, helping with childcare. The other family members lived in a second house in a nearby suburb: George and Sifiso slept in one bedroom, George Junior in another and the three girls shared the third, Nothando and Charmaine together in one double bed and Charlene in another double bed. The girls' room was small, with just enough space (25 cm) to move between the two beds. Nothando says that their beds were so close together, sometimes she and Charlene held hands when they were in bed. There was also a small study downstairs. The two households got together often.
George Junior, Tafadzwa and Nothando were enrolled in studies at university. George was studying engineering, Tafadzwa food technology and Nothando law and commerce. George Junior was an A-grade tennis player and played for Canterbury. The two girls went to Wairakei Primary School, and most of the family were members of a local Zimbabwean church, Forward In Faith Ministry, led by pastors Thomas and Nokuthula Gonera, although George remained a Catholic. Charmaine did well at school but Charlene was struggling. At the beginning of 2006, in Year 5 of primary school, she had learning difficulties despite additional teacher aid. By the end of the year, aged 10, her reading level was that of a five-year-old. The school met with Sifiso to explain that she needed to repeat Year 5 in 2007. Her teacher said that she was a polite and friendly child and never gave staff any cause to be concerned about her home life. When she wrote stories she told about her family, her mum and dad and how much she loved them. She had lots of time off school sick with what Sifiso said were chest infections and colds. For the last few months of 2006 Charlene was also leaving class to go to the toilet for long periods of time, explaining to her teacher that she had a 'tummy bug'.
Her teachers, fellow pupils, her family and members of her church all reported that Charlene was a quiet girl, a tiny child with a squeaky little voice. Her sister Nothando says that she had an endearing speech habit in that she was unable to sound her 'r's. She was very short (her height was at the third percentile), although she was well nourished and was normal weight for her size. Although Shona was her native language she was also fluent in English. She spoke softly and did not run around and play like other children of her age.
She was not a passive child, though. Her older sister Maggie describes Charlene as a little girl who very much knew her own mind and who, although she was younger, would look out for her older sister Charmaine, whom she would ardently defend on occasion. Charmaine and Nothando also say that Charlene was a somewhat bossy little girl, very talkative and cheerful, and often behaving like the older sibling, telling quiet Charmaine what to do. She was very confident. Maggie describes an occasion in 2006 when one of Charlene's teachers in Christchurch had had a baby who sadly had lived for only a few hours. On her own initiative Charlene stood up in front of the entire adult church congregation and gave testimony about the baby and its short life.
Charlene was very fond of music. She would often sing, and would use whatever she was holding, such as a spoon, as a pretend microphone. Near the end of 2006 her class was studying music from other countries, and Charlene would bring in a CD of music from Zimbabwe every week. In October 2006 Wairakei Primary School was involved in a World Vision concert. Charlene was one of the first to volunteer to sing. Her music teacher was concerned that she would not be able to cope, even though she was very keen; however, Charlenelearned the 15 songs required in two weeks, and was one of 70 children from the school participating in the concert. Her music teacher reported that she did really well.
The teacher also describes how, during the interval, a video was shown about World Vision. Although she was seated behind the screen and could not see it, Charlene could hear it. Her teacher found her sobbing quietly, and when she asked what was wrong, Charlene replied that she was sad 'because of the children in Africa'.
Charlene had a strong Christian faith. She would wake up very early in the morning to pray, because she believed that few people would be awake then so God would hear her prayers. Nothando said that she would often pray for God to take her cough away. While she would speak out if she had a very bad new symptom, she was stoical and generally lived with her discomfort and incapacity without complaint. Even as a small child she would take whatever medication was given her, in the hope that it would make her better. Although she called Sifiso and George Mum and Dad, she was aware they were not her birth parents, and she was always thanking them for looking after her.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Murder That Wasn't by Felicity Goodyear-Smith, Gillian Tewsley. Copyright © 2015 Felicity Goodyear-Smith. Excerpted by permission of Otago University Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Front Cover,Title Page,
Copyright,
Foreword Mark Henaghan and Harlene Hayne,
Acknowledgements,
Abbreviations,
Prologue,
Chapter 1: Who is Charlene?,
Chapter 2: Charlene's final illness,
Chapter 3: A change of diagnosis,
Chapter 4: The family's life changes forever,
Chapter 5: After the arrest,
Chapter 6: Enter expert witnesses for the defence,
Chapter 7: The first trial,
Chapter 8: Short-lived freedom,
Chapter 9: The waiting days,
Chapter 10: Further forensic testing,
Chapter 11: Expert medical witnesses for the second trial,
Chapter 12: Double jeopardy in action,
Chapter 13: Legal ramifications,
Chapter 14: Good versus bad science,
Chapter 15: Conclusion,
Aftermath,
Notes,
Index,
Back Cover,