Decisions…. Choices…. Something we all do on a daily basis, with long-lasting effects.

My dear friend Carol fell in love with a prisoner. She was much older than me, at least ten, fifteen years older. We met at work. She’s never been married before, no children, well established in her career and in herself. To me she was a mentor, someone to look up to and respect. We’ve spent so many hours in each other’s company at work so it came to no surprise that we’d ended up as good friends.

Carol told me about Mario. They knew each other from school years ago and never dated or anything but they were acquainted with each other. They were born and raised in Bluff, KwaZulu Natal, North of Durban, South Africa. She could still remember the day she read the newspaper article of how Mario hacked to death his mother, grandmother and his best friend with an axe at the family home on 27 July 1999. He also attacked his father, but he survived.

Source

The brutal slaying rocked the community, with the memory of screams and wailing sirens still fresh in the minds of many. The story paints a sordid picture of a man suffering from drug-induced schizophrenia.

She befriended and became infatuated with Mario.

By the time of his conviction in November 2000, Carol and Mario had started a dating.

He was sentenced to serve six years for attempted murder and 15 years for three counts of murder.
Source

No one could and can still understand her closeness to him. I have tried to warn her about him many times, but there is only so much one can do and say. I suppose her heart saw the man he was or could be without the drugs as she would argue that he didn’t have any recollection of the bloody night due to the high levels of crack cocaine he snorted. Neither Carol nor Mario though of him to be the person who committed the murders.

Through Carol’s intervention, he was moved from Newcastle to Boksburg prison, closer to her, where she visited him twice a week. He served more than half of his sentence and was eligible for consideration for parole after completing six years of his sentence. He then served three years more than the eligible minimum sentence. He was paroled in November 2009 but four months later he was back in prison after it was discovered he was back on drugs. Less than two years later he was paroled again.

Yes, you’ve guessed it, they eventually got married on 29 July 2012. But Mario got back on drugs by November 2013 and instead of being re-arrested, was sent to a rehab facility of which he stayed seven weeks of the mandatory six months.

Things never really got any better and Carol never got to experienced her happily ever after. Carol was killed at the hands of her husband after a heated argument about his drug use. She was stabbed to death with a kitchen knife - three times in her back and once in the arm. Mario was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment with the instruction that he shall not be placed on parole for a period of 12 years. He is currently sharing a cell intended for 25 prisoners with 57 others.

Carol was placed to rest on the date what would have been her second wedding anniversary, Tuesday, 29 July 2014

She was a caring loving person who only saw the good in everyone she met. I will forever miss her.