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We are finally moving forward – Baby Jordan’s family

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Eleven years since the murder of six-month-old Jordan Leigh Norton, the family says they are finally moving forward.

“We still celebrate her birthday every year. It gives us time to remember Jordan in a positive way,” the child’s grandfather Vernon Norton told News24 on Wednesday.

He said Jordan’s birthday was a light and happy day for the family.

It was a time to forget about the crime. Jordan was killed in her grandparents’ Lansdowne, Cape Town, home on June 15, 2005.

Two of her five killers, Bonginkosi Sigenu and Zanethemba Gwada, were denied parole following a hearing at the Drakenstein prison on Wednesday.

The two were jailed for the murder in June 2007, along with Sipho Mfazwe and Mongezi Bobotyane, and the mastermind, Dina Rodrigues.

Rodrigues approached them at a minibus taxi rank and paid them R10 000.

The four men gained access to the family’s home by claiming to be from a courier company. They stabbed Jordan in the neck.

Norton said the last parole hearing was difficult for the family.

“The last time, it was difficult to be in the same room as your grandchild’s killers. I would say it made it much easier for us as a family to be in the same room as them again,” Norton said.

Heartache

Norton said the family still had to deal with the heartache and sorrow.

He said Jordan’s mother, Natasha Norton, was doing much better.

She did not attend Wednesday’s parole hearing though because she was afraid it would take her back to the ordeal again.

They intended to continue objecting to the killers being granted parole.

At the time of the murder, Rodrigues was in a relationship with Neil Wilson. He fathered the baby with Norton, his previous girlfriend.

In papers she filed with the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2013, in her unsuccessful bid to appeal her sentence, Rodrigues said she was happy in her relationship with Wilson until she heard of his illegitimate child.

She was “deeply infatuated” with him, and her discovery that Wilson and Norton had a child had a “profound effect” on her.

“In my efforts to seek ways to release myself from the emotional pain from which I often suffered, I began to plot the child’s demise in my imagination,” she said.

By Iavan Pijoos

[Source: News24]
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