Former UKZN student leader in US jail for murder

A former student leaders who made Durban’s Westville campus ungovernable in the early 2000s is set to spend his sixth Christmas behind bars.

Durban - While some student leaders face the prospect of spending Christmas behind bars, one of their former leaders who made Durban’s Westville campus ungovernable in the early 2000s is set to spend his sixth Christmas behind bars.

However, it won’t be for student protests, but rather his conviction for two murders that will keep Muziwokuthula “Muzi” Madondo behind bars in the US state of New Mexico.

According to officials in the state of Ohio, he is unlikely to be moved any time soon from the Penitentiary of New Mexico near Santa Fe to Ohio where he faces a further two charges of murder and a potential death sentence.

“I suppose we are in no rush to get him here. He’s not going anywhere soon,” said James Pollack, the spokesman for the Summit County prosecutor’s office on Monday night.

Madondo, who led student protests over the canteen food at the then University of Durban-Westville (UDW) before its merger with the University of Natal in 2004, pleaded guilty in December 2015 to the gunning down of father and son Bobby Gonzales, 57, and Gabriel Baca, 37 in a motel in Tucumcari in New Mexico.

It is a crime for which he will have to serve at least 24 years before being eligible for parole.

Pollack confirmed that a case for extraditing Madondo from New Mexico to Ohio had yet to be presented by prosecutor Brian LoPrinzi to a grand jury. Pollack said that it was likely that the case was being finalised so that no mistakes would be made.

Madondo, who was the Student Representative Council president at the then University of Durban-Westville, is alleged to have killed First Merit Bank executive Jacquelyn Hilder in Akron, Ohio, which is in Summit County.

Hilder died in her home from two gunshots to the chest and abdomen on the night of February 17 in 2011, while two days later the bullet-riddled body of a Maritzburg College old boy Zenzele Mdadane was found in a forest some 300km away in Butler Township near the city of Dayton in Ohio.

Unlike New Mexico, Ohio has the death penalty.

During his arrest and initial detention by Texas Rangers in the Texas town of Conroe in March 2011, Madondo confessed not only to the murders of Gonzales and Baca, but also apparently to those of Hilder and Mdadane.

Madondo succeeded earlier last year in getting the Supreme Court of New Mexico to rule that his rights were violated when the confession was taken. The court ruled that a jury should not hear the confession, but then less than two months before he was due to stand trial Madondo pleaded guilty to the Tucumcari killings.

Speaking shortly before Madondo’s sentencing in December last year District Attorney Tim Rose told the African News Agency (ANA) that Madondo had admitted to killing Hilder with the sole purpose of “getting money”.

“He travelled from Akron, Ohio, for the sole purpose of committing the murder of Mdadane. He said it was cold-blooded and premeditated. He wanted some retribution for some acts that the other gentleman (Mdadane) had done to him in the past.”

Madondo, who hails from Richmond near Pietermaritzburg, admitted in his videotaped confession to stripping Mdadane of his clothing so that he would not be identified.

Madondo used Mdadane’s identification to open a bank account and lease an apartment.

The confession will be the subject of a separate court battle in Ohio when Madondo does eventually get extradited to Ohio and it may rule differently to the Supreme Court of New Mexico.

However, ANA has learnt that detectives investigating the Hilder case have sufficient evidence without the confession to place Madondo at Hilder’s house at the time she was murdered.

The gun that was found on Madondo when he was arrested in Texas appears to have been used in the commission of all four crimes.

It is believed that when presented with the forensic evidence, Madondo then decided to plead guilty to the Tucumcari murders.

Ironically, while the confession he gave to the Texas Rangers was not allowed by the New Mexico Supreme Court, detectives in the City of Akron Police Department and the Butler Township Police Department had no leads on the murders of Hilder and Mdadane until he made the confession.

But the Akron detectives have no doubt that it was Madondo who was responsible for Hilder’s death.

An Akron detective close to the case, said: “The way he described what happened, you would have had to be there. Up until then (the confession) we had no idea. We think the case is quite strong without his confession.”

It is also understood that Madondo, who went to the US in 2008 as a theology student, has also been linked to the murder scenes through Global Position System (GPS) technology.

He apparently used the van of his employer, for whom he installed satellite television dishes, at the Hilder crime scene. The van had a tracking device.

A recent picture from the maximum security Penitentiary of New Mexico shows a distinctly aged and clean-shaven Madondo. According to the New Mexico Corrections department he is classified as a Level IV inmate, which is described as follows: “Inmate’s criminal background and record of institutional behaviour indicate that the inmate requires the need for continued staff supervision and observation within the confines of the security fences, armed towers and armed vehicle patrols. Inmate has the ability to function in general population but due to previous behaviour or criminal background, inmate has a potential for actions that may threaten the security of the institution.”

And although the death sentence is no longer applicable in New Mexico, the Penitentiary of New Mexico has not demolished the gas chamber that has only only ever been used once, back in 1960.

African News Agency