Wife abuse ends in double murder

MY name is Michael. I am 33 years old, married to a beautiful woman who I met in university and she is the mother of my two little sons.
Reading about the increase in domestic and sexual violence cases every day in the papers, I too want to share my mother’s story. Mum is the one that taught me to respect, love and cherish my wife.
My father died in 2000, he was killed by my mother. I was only 14 years old then but I can still remember that day clearly.
The sun rose that morning but the town was covered in thick mist; it was as if nature knew that things would never be the same again.
I remember coming home from school to see people gathered outside our gate. I heard mama’s cries and my little sister screaming, she was just screaming.
I walked into the room to find my mother naked and covered in blood as the body of my father and his girlfriend lay on the floor of their bedroom.
Mother had killed them both. She stabbed Papa in the eye and the prostitute in her stomach eight times.
Mother was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of the two.
Nineteen years ago, the magistrate that heard her case failed to see that she was fighting for her life, for her children, for her family.
I was only 14 years old but old enough to know what was happening. My father was an abusive, violent man. In fact I now think he was probably sick in his mind.
He would beat my mother for the smallest thing, like if he came home from work and mama wasn’t quick enough to leave what she was doing and bring him water and take his shoes off. He would scream and start beating her.
He never allowed her to dress up or wear makeup, stopped her from having friends or even visit her family.
Bride price the excuse
Growing up, there were many times mama took us and left, but papa would come and demand her back from her family saying that he had paid for her bride price.
Mama’s family would send us back to him because they didn’t have the money to repay her bride price if she stayed back.
He paid our school fees, ensured we, the children had everything we needed but treated our mother like some animal. He was my hero but slowly as the years went by I started hating him, sometimes I think if mama had not killed him, I would have.
He would bring one of his male friends home after a drinking session and force mama to sleep with him. If she didn’t, he would beat her. We would hear mama crying, and all this would happen in their room.
Then in 2000, he stopped bringing men to the house after drinking. He would bring his girlfriend instead and order mama to go into the room with them where he would force her to have sex with them.
He wouldn’t care that we could hear, he would scream at mama in the room and threaten her and we would listen to our mother’s cries.
Anger and plot to kill
Two days before mama killed him, I asked dad to give me money to buy some things I needed for a project I was working on. He gave me the money and I used it to buy a very sharp, long thin knife from the street.
I couldn’t bear to hear my mama’s cries anymore. I showed mama the knife and told her that if he came home one more time and beat her I would murder him.
The next day when I came home, the knife wasn’t in my room, I asked mum and she said she had hidden it in a safe place.
So that afternoon when I came home and found dad’s body on the ground, I felt relieved, like we were finally free.
Mama told me later that dad had forced her to sleep with them again but she just lost it when he went out and pulled my little sister into the room. She was only nine years old then. Mama had hidden the knife under the mattress. She just pulled it out and fought to save her baby girl and in the act she somehow managed to stab dad in his right eye and when dad’s girlfriend tried to stop her she just kept stabbing her. She forgot everything and thought only of the humiliation, the pain, the torture that they had caused her and she stabbed the prostitute eight times.
Mama was sentenced to life in prison. It was unfair, because she was sent to prison for murdering two monsters. If she had not killed them she would instead have had a life sentence of being physically and sexually abused. My little sister would have been abused too.
When I turned 16, I took over my dad’s business and raised my little sister. She graduated from university with a degree in social works because she told me she wanted to help others like mama. I never went to university or grade 12. I continue to run my father’s business yet every day I wake up and I look at my wife and I pray that I don’t become like my father. I teach my son’s every day to respect women.
Last week I went up to visit my mama in prison and she told me she was reading a lot of stories of women breaking the silence and speaking up. She said she was glad that there was now a family sexual violence unit (FSVU) to assist women. She is 58 years old, her hair has turned gray and every time I see her my heart still aches for I think how life has been so cruel to her.
Too scared to tell
And she told me, “You know, if I had left him sooner, I wouldn’t have caused us so much pain. He used to beat me but I would forgive him and stay. He got used to it and I got used to it. He became more violent because of my silence. I was so afraid to tell people outside of our house what was happening. I was so afraid of breaking the silence.”
She asked me to forgive her for murdering my father but I told her she didn’t need any forgiving from me, for if she hadn’t killed him, I would have.
Then she asked me to forgive my father. She said she had made her peace with the Lord and wanted me to forgive my father too.
I told her maybe someday I would.
Driving back home, I thought of it and wanted to share this story. The violence and abuse in our home had gotten so bad because we kept silent about it and didn’t seek outside help.
If you are being physically, mentally or sexually abused, break the silence and seek outside help.
– As told to Rebecca Kuku.