THE MID-AIR MELTDOWN
This shattered father from the Eastern Cape is struggling to come to terms with the murder of his daughter at the hands of the woman he loved
The papers also spell out what allegedly happened on the plane.
“As documented in the FBI report, Pitt’s aggressive behaviour started even before the family got to the airport.
“After the flight took off, Jolie approached Pitt and asked him what was wrong. He accused her of being too deferential to the children and verbally attacked her. An hour and a half later, Pitt walked over to Jolie, demanding she ‘come here’, and directed her to the back of the plane.
“He pulled her into the bathroom and began yelling at her. Pitt grabbed her by the head and shook her and then grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall. He then punched the ceiling of the plane numerous times, prompting Jolie to leave the bathroom.
“As she exited, one of the children asked, ‘Mommy, are you okay?’ Pitt yelled back, ‘No, Mommy’s not okay,’ and started deriding Jolie with insults.”
When one of the children tried to defend her, Brad lurched towards the child. Angie grabbed Brad to stop him and he threw himself backwards on the seats, injuring her.
“Before it was over, Pitt choked one of the children and struck another in the face,” the documents read.
“Some of the children were pleading with Pitt to stop. They were all frightened. Many were crying.”
For the rest of the flight, Angie and the
children huddled under blankets.
“Nobody dared to go to the bathroom. Pitt periodically emerged from the back of the plane to yell and swear at them.
“At one point he poured beer on Jolie; at another, he poured beer and red wine on the children. After many tense hours, Pitt fell asleep.”
When the plane landed in LA, Angie told him she was going to a hotel with the children. “He shouted that no one was getting off the plane and prevented the family from deplaning for about 20 minutes.”
It was only when one of the kids demanded to leave that Brad allowed them to disembark. But Brad’s fury continued on the ground, the papers claim. “Pitt again physically abused one of the children. He also grabbed and shook Angie, causing one of the children to beg, ‘Don’t hurt her’. He let her go but called her a b***h before adding, ‘F*** you, f*** you all’.”
HE’D searched for his little girl all day and when his efforts proved unsuccessful he went home so he could be there in case she walked through the door. But as the hours crept by, he became more and more frantic.
Quinton Goodman couldn’t rest knowing his nine-year-old daughter wasn’t in her bed where she belonged. The father from Bethelsdorp in the Eastern Cape spent the night tossing and turning, crying and praying that his only child was safe wherever she was.
Then, just before 3am, he heard a knock on the door and flung it open, hoping his prayers had been answered. But when he saw two police officers, he knew something terrible had happened to his precious child.
His fears were confirmed: Quinisha Sebrant was dead – but there was more horror to come. His girlfriend, Lesley-Ann Damon, had handed herself over to the police for the girl’s murder.
“When the police told me that, it didn’t sink in,” Quinton (35) says. “It didn’t make sense. I told them it can’t be true because I dated her for four years and this wasn’t who she was. I even thought someone had threatened her or something because it couldn’t be her.”
He needed to know for himself what had happened, so he headed to the police station. Cops there confirmed what had happened: on the morning of 28 March, Lesley-Ann told Quinton she was going to the hair salon and asked him if she could take Quinisha with her.
Lesley-Ann (25) then decided she and Quinisha should hike to Maitland beach without Quinton knowing. After the little girl returned from a swim, Lesley-Anne admitted she’d strangled her using her shoelace, and left her body on the beach.
She was arrested when she handed herself over and confessed her crime. Lesley-Ann pleaded guilty in court and was convicted of murder by a Gqeberha high court judge and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Quinton felt relief when he heard her fate. “The heaviness on my shoulders felt a little lighter. But even if she got 50 years it’s not going to bring my child back.”
HE CAN’T understand how someone he’d known and trusted for more than 10 years could do something so terrible. Quinton hasn’t spoken to
Lesley-Ann since the fateful morning she took Quinisha but he hopes one day he’ll be ready to look her in the eye.
“I want to ask her why she did it because my daughter didn’t deserve this. She was an innocent, sweet and beautiful child.”
He met Lesley-Ann at a school function in 2010 and they dated for a year. Quinton, who works as a forklift driver in Bethelsdorp, then met Quinisha’s mom, Clarisse Sebrant (27).
After dating for five years, they went their separate ways and Quinisha stayed with him. “She visited her mom on weekends sometimes, but she lived with me from the age of two,” he says.
In 2018 he rekindled his relationship with Lesley-Ann after his friends spotted her in church and reconnected the pair. “We had a really good relationship,” he says. “I trusted her and I was going to marry her.”
His daughter, who was five at the time, regarded Lesley-Ann as a second mom, which is why he had no qualms about the pair spending the day together.
Quinton had made plans to meet them after their outing and even though he hadn’t heard anything from Lesley-Ann or his daughter that day, he wasn’t concerned.
“I just thought they were busy,” he recalls.
But when they hadn’t returned by 5pm, he started to worry. “I realised I had to go and look for them. I looked everywhere – I went to her mom and all the spots I thought she might be.
“I even went to the hospital. I called my cousin and we went up and down looking for them, but nothing. Eventually I went to the police.”
After reporting the pair missing, Quinton continued to drive around until about midnight, but decided to head home in case they’d found their way back. It was a living nightmare, he says.
“I couldn’t sleep because the tears kept rolling. I just kept praying that my child was safe.”
Then came that knock on the door and his blood ran cold when he saw the police officers. “I didn’t want to hear what they had to say. Every time one officer tried to talk to me, I walked away.”
THE police gave him time to compose himself before they told him the gruesome details. Lesley-Ann had taken the cops to the beach to show where she’d left Quinisha’s body.
“I trusted her with the most important thing in my life and she took it from me. I want to know why,” he says.
During her trial,
A family member hugs Lesley-Ann in court after she was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Lesley-Ann said her actions were driven by her depression after she had an abortion in 2019 that Quinton had “forced” her to have.
In an affidavit read out in court, she said she discovered she was pregnant in 2018 and claimed when she told Quinton about it, he reacted negatively. She then decided to go to Dora Nginza Hospital for an abortion in January 2019.
Quinton denies pressuring her to abort the pregnancy. “In her statement she said she wanted me to feel what she felt in 2018. That’s not a reason to hurt my child – Quinisha was innocent,” he says.
If Lesley-Ann’s intention was to punish him, she succeeded, Quinton says. “She broke me because she took gold away from me.”
Quinisha was the apple of his eye. “She was always the first to wake up, and the first words spoken in our house every morning were, ‘Daddy, can you make me some porridge?’” he says.
His daughter was a little livewire, he adds. “She was in a modelling club, she loved singing and involved herself in all the school activities. She’d come home and say, ‘Dad, I’m doing this, and you must get me this’. I always tried to give her everything she needed.”
Quinton says he wouldn’t have got through the dark months since his daughter’s death without the help of his family, friends and community. “Everyone has been there for everything, I’m incredibly grateful.
“All I can say is it’s not easy, but the support has carried me through and now we try to move on and hold on to the memories.”
However, he knows that working through his grief and his guilt will take time. “I’m heartbroken and angry because I wasn’t there when my daughter needed me most.
“But I’m taking it as it comes. I’m still Quinton, and nothing will get me down. I’ll just keep picking myself up.”
Although he can’t escape the pain of the past, he’s trying to move forward because that’s what his daughter would’ve wanted.
“Everything I do now, I do for my child.”
‘MY DAUGHTER DIDN’T DESERVE THIS. SHE WAS AN INNOCENT, SWEET AND BEAUTIFUL CHILD