Baby Jordan killer receives diploma
FIVE years ago she was the most hated woman in South Africa.
Today, Dina Rodrigues, convicted for the murder of six-month-old baby Jordan-leigh Norton five years ago, will receive a diploma in computer literacy.
Rodrigues is serving a life sentence in a Western Cape prison, where she shares a cell with 11 other women, including Najwa Pietersen.
Pietersen was found guilty of plotting the death of her well-known musician husband, Taliep.
Rodrigues will receive her diploma at a graduation ceremony at Cape Town’s Pollsmoor prison, to be attended by Correctional Services Minister Nosiviwe Noluthando Mapisa-nqakula.
She gained notoriety after baby Jordan was stabbed at home in Lansdowne, Cape Town, in June 2005. Judge Basheer Waglay convicted Rodrigues of murder in May 2007.
She hired four men to kill the baby of Natasha Norton, fathered by her boyfriend, Neil Wilson. Her fingerprints were found on a waybill at the scene of the crime.
At a previous awards ceremony, attended by Mapisa-nqakula, she pleaded for a second chance and “accepted responsibility” for her actions and the hurt she had caused.
“I’ve put them through hell and now I must live with it,” Rodrigues told the audience.
“My mentor told me to stop dwelling on the past and to start focusing on my future.”
The Rodrigues family has refused to comment.
Norton this week said she was “moving on” with her life. She had a second daughter and has moved to a different part of the country.
During the marathon trial, it emerged that Rodrigues sent Wilson an SMS saying she had paid R10 000 to “make it go away”.
Rodrigues will be eligible for parole in years.
She is serving her sentence at a mediumsecurity prison in Worcester, in the Boland,
20 and passed a Unisa-accredited adult basic education and training facilitators and assessors course with an “A” aggregate in 2010.
Before that she commerce degree.
The Dispatch has established that Rodrigues, who turns 31 next month, spends most of her time at the prison school for women, where she teaches adult basic education classes, which are compulsory. She also teaches numeracy. Petersen makes prison uniforms.
Two years ago, at a women’s empowerment meeting at Pollsmoor prison, Rodrigues broke her silence about her role in the murder.
Provincial correctional services spokesman Simphiwe Xako said the four “hitmen” had completed most of the prison’s rehabilitation and awareness programmes.
Sipho Mfazwe, 39, and Mongezi Bobotyane, 30, both received life terms.
The two younger offenders, Zanethemba Gwada, 25, and Bonginkosi Sigenu, 23, are each serving 15 years.
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