Heartbreak of Father’s Day as only child is slain
WHILE the rest of the world celebrate Father’s Day, a US man finds himself in South Africa, following the Western Cape High Court trial of the Guatemalan accused of murdering his only child. Speaking to
this week, Howdy Kabrins shrugged, unable to explain what made him take a picture of his daughter in that moment – she was severely ill and in a wheelchair.
It was a sad picture – not exactly an Instagram-worthy moment one would want to share with the rest of the world. Which is why he prefers to keep it to himself.
The picture was taken at the Los Angeles airport and Gaby – the nickname he’d given his daughter, Gabriela – was on her way to Guatemala to leave her two labradoodles, Teddy and Chica, with a friend, before departing for South Africa.
The purpose of her travels? Going to a retreat she had been persuaded to attend in the hope that it would cure her of Lyme Disease.
Kabrins was concerned about his daughter making the long journey. However, for more than a year “I’d been taking her to different specialists, who initially made a misdiagnosis of Addison’s Disease and there was insufficient improvement in her condition”.
Concerned, he helped her board a plane in Los Angeles, and hoped she would return feeling better.
However, neither could ever have imagined that less than a month later he would be woken up in the dead of night to be told she had been brutally and horrifically murdered in an upmarket hotel in Camps Bay, Cape Town.
Today is his third painful Father’s Day without his treasured Gaby – a young businesswoman who focused on promoting the cultural diversity of Latinos.
On Father’s Day in 2015, she had already left for South Africa.
This year, instead of enjoying the home-cooked meal he has every year, he is living in a hotel far from his family and friends following the trial of the Guatemalan man charged with his daughter’s murder.
Diego Novella has pleaded not guilty to the charge in the Western Cape High Court and has indicated he will set out to prove diminished responsibility due to drug intoxication.
Kabrins is impressed with the judicial system so far. “I’ve learnt that in South Africa the judicial system is very, very, very strong. The rights of everybody are respected and protected here,” he said.
However, he had reservations about the accused as a potential son-in-law from the start, saying there was something about Novella that he didn’t like.
He recalled the first time he met the accused in 2014 – about a year before his daughter was killed. Gabriela was sick again and he decided to travel with her to Guatemala. By then she and Novella had been living together for about six months.
While a man would usually go out of his way to impress his partner’s father, he didn’t get the same treatment from Novella and described him as only “mildly respectful”.
It made him feel uneasy: “Fathers have inklings.”
But he never told Gabriela of his concerns because “she was so debilitatingly sick and wanted to make the relationship work”.
Speaking about the inner turmoil he has experienced since his daughter was killed, Kabrins said he noticed a recurring number 14. For example her birthday was on May 14, her body was found in room 14 of the hotel he had been staying in. Also, the last time they saw each other was on June 14, 2015. Since the number 14 in Judaism represents the Hand of God, it made him reflect on his purpose in life. “My feeling is that I am caught at the epicentre of a major global human rights issue… I strongly believe that I have a duty to speak out and share my tragedy in the hope that all fathers and men across the globe will be challenged to stand up and speak out against senseless violence that is visited upon their daughters and mothers. Men need to stand up and be counted – this trajectory of violence must end,” he said.
Kabrins said he struggled as a single parent since Gabriela was 3 years old. “It was important to me for her to always feel safe and loved and to share a positive view of life. We always talked about a word ‘sonrisa’ It sounds like sunrise but it means ‘to smile’.” His daughter epitomised sonrisa, he said. She called him “Papi” and he sometimes called her “Mi Hija” – a highly affectionate form of referring to someone as “my daughter”. When Kabrins thinks about his daughter today, he remembers how she enjoyed snuggling up with Gabriella, above right, shares a light moment with her stepmother Linda Kabrins and stepsister Nikki while cooking. him and Gaby’s stepmother, Linda.
Kabrins said that, although Gaby was an only child, she was fortunate to have four parents.
He said she loved her mother, Doris Weitz. “We utterly adored one another… I shared the outdoors and nature with Gaby. I also shared my values and work ethic. Her mom, Doris, shared elegance, travel, recipes and style. She had the best of both worlds,” he added.
But, even though he sometimes experienced feelings of disbelief, he knew that she was gone forever.