Woman appears at own funeral, confronts “jealous” husband who paid $7000 to have her killed
“When I got out of the car, he saw me straight away. He put his hands on his head and said, ‘Is it my eyes? Is it a ghost?'”, Noela Rukundo recounts.
Rukundo was not supposed to be alive. In fact, the last guest at her funeral had just left her “bereaved husband” when she surfaced.
And the hired killers had been paid. Twice even. They had also confirmed that the job had been done and explained how they would dispose of the body.
Still, it was not her ghost the terrified husband saw.
“Surprise! I’m still alive!” she replied.
Five days earlier she had heard her husband, Balenga Kalala, direct a gang of gunmen to “Kill her” over the phone.
Had she not heard his voice, she wouldn’t have believed.
She told the BBC: “They ask me, ‘What did you do to this man? Why has this man asked us to kill you?’ And then I tell them, ‘Which man? Because I don’t have any problem with anybody.’ They say, ‘Your husband!’ I say, ‘My husband can’t kill me, you are lying!’ And then they slap me.
She was back in her homeland, Burundi, to attend the funeral of her stepmother when she was abducted.
But the gang spared her life.
“But he (the gang leader) looks at me and then he says, ‘We’re not going to kill you. We don’t kill women and children.’
They also gave her a mobile phone, recordings of their phone conversations with Kalala, and receipts for the $7,000 in Australian dollars they allegedly received in payment.
“We just want you to go back, to tell other stupid women like you what happened,” Rukundo said she was told before the gang members drove away.
While she planned her return to their home in Melbourne, Asutralia, her husband had told everyone she died in a tragic accident.
Kalala was shocked to see his wife after the funeral.
Here’s how she described his reaction:
“I was stood just looking at him. He was scared, he didn’t believe it. Then he starts walking towards me, slowly, like he was walking on broken glass.
“He kept talking to himself and when he reached me, he touched me on the shoulder. He jumped.
“He did it again. He jumped. Then he said, ‘Noela, is it you?’… Then he start screaming, ‘I’m sorry for everything.'”
Afterwards, Rukundu who had been married to him for ten years, reported to the police.
Although Kalala initially denied any involvement in the plot, he eventually owned up after he was told about the evidence from Burundi.
He plead guilty to incitement to murder and was sentenced to nine years in prison in December 2015..
