A four-year-old girl still stands at the gate and calls out for her “mommy”, not understanding that she is never coming back — and her own father is the reason.
The sad reality is that Zaida Samodien, a 33-year-old mother and lawyer from Newton Park, was just another Nelson Mandela Bay woman brutally murdered by a man who once professed to love her.
But as the final gavel came down on Rezaan Fondling’s denials and tall stories of what had happened on that fateful day, Samodien’s family, through heart-rending letters read out in the Gqeberha high court on Friday, ensured she would never be forgotten.
Some sighed with relief as others wiped away tears, overcome with emotion when Fondling was convicted of stabbing his eight-months pregnant wife to death.
Sitting in the dock, the 35-year-old showed little emotion as acting judge Rosaan Kruger described his actions as brutal.
He was also convicted of defeating the ends of justice for trying to stage the murder scene to appear as if he and his wife had been the victims of a violent hijacking.
Many in the gallery were brought to tears for a second time during the court proceedings when letters from Samodien’s eldest daughter and her father were read out by the prosecution in aggravation of sentence.
Samodien, a much-loved attorney in Gqeberha, was found beaten and stabbed to death on the side of the road near the Gamtoos River bridge in December 2020.
At the time of her death, she had two daughters, a 15-year-old from a previous relationship and a two-year-old with Fondling.
She was also eight months pregnant with Fondling’s son.
During the trial, the court heard Samodien suffered regular abuse at the hands of Fondling, who struggled with substance-abuse problems.
After his conviction, Samodien’s mother, Moefeeda, struggled to express her relief as her eyes welled up with tears.
“We all knew what he did, but we were always worried about what the court would believe,” she said.
“Obviously nothing will ever bring my daughter back, but I am relieved to know my daughter’s killer was brought to justice and we can find some kind of closure.”
At the start of pre-sentencing proceedings, state advocate Ismat Cerfontein read a letter from Samodien’s eldest daughter, Zeyana van Rooyen, now 18, into the record.
In the letter, Van Rooyen describes the sleepless nights and immense trauma she has experienced since her mother’s untimely death.
“Seeing a car that looked like my mother’s would trigger me, because that was her place of death.
“A slight rise in the voice of a teacher caused me to start panicking, as it took me back to the times that Rezaan would raise his voice at me and my mother.
“I never got a chance to say goodbye.
“The day before her death, I never got the chance to speak to her.
“I only got to hear her last words to my sister: ‘Mummy’s going to come back now’ — but that never happened.”
She told how she and her younger sister never got to share milestones with their mother, and also spoke of how she was caused further trauma when Fondling tried to engage with her on social media while in prison.
A second letter, written by Samodien’s father, Abdul, spoke about the heartache he endured as he had to identify his daughter’s body and convey the horrible news of her death to his wife.
“I was severely traumatised when I saw our daughter’s body and the body of her [unborn] son lying on her chest.”
He spoke about Samodien and Fondling’s now four-year-old daughter, and the sadness they felt every time the little girl would cry for her mother.
“Whenever we were in the backyard, [their daughter] would go to the fence between the main house and cottage where she and her mother lived.
“She would then call out ‘mommy, mommy, mommy’ at the fence with no reply.”
He said his only solace was prayer, asking Allah to grant his daughter a special place in heaven.
Arguing in mitigation of sentence, defence attorney Ryno Scholtz said other than previous drug-related charges, Fondling had no previous convictions for violent crime and asked the judge to be lenient.
Cerfontein, on the other hand, spoke about the violent nature of the murder and suggested that life in prison would be a suitable sentence.
Kruger postponed the matter to June 30, when she is expected to hand down sentence.
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