Khadija Magardie Entering Dr Manuela Costa’s medical practice in a nondescript, semi-deserted building in Wynberg, near Alexandra, patients are greeted by a poster carrying a poem.
It reads: “Bless the people who cross this threshold, Bless the souls who need to be here … But take away the anger; take away the hurt, Take away the bitterness.” Costa, a petite, blond, strikingly good- looking woman in her late 40s, arrives at the surgery early and leaves late every night – which would make it easy to believe she is burying herself in her work to block out memories that would otherwise haunt her. But her office makes it all the harder to judge or to believe that she has put her past completely behind her. Facing her desk are four enlarged photographs of her good-looking, dark- haired sons. Around the room, between the medicine chests and examination table, are typical “proud mother memorabilia”, medals won on sports days, certificates of achievement and crayon drawings. All day, Costa is surrounded by memories of her family – she fondly refers to them as “my four little ones”. But today, the four are two; Filipe (12), and Daniel (9) are living with relatives in faraway Portugal. Their brothers, Michael (11) and Andre (9), were killed by their mother.
Two years ago a heavily depressed Costa, suffering from acute breast cancer, nearly bankrupt and about to lose the family home, decided to kill her children, burn the house to the ground and then commit suicide.
Described at the time as “one of South Africa’s most horrific family murders”, Costa injected her sons with a deadly cocktail of drugs and set fire to the family home. Firemen said Costa crept around trying to relight the blaze they were battling to put out. When the flames had subsided, two children lay dead. Their mother, severely injured in the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital, was charged with murder, attempted murder and arson.
This week the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court upheld Costa’s claims of psychosis at the time – finding her not guilty on the grounds that at the time of the crime she lacked the mental capacity to know what she was doing. But the bittersweet coup de grfce – the sentencing – is in limbo. By law, a magistrate is compelled to issue an “automatic and mandatory referral to a mental institution” to anyone found not guilty on the grounds of mental incapacity. Costa’s attorneys, from the Wits Law Clinic in Gauteng, have successfully applied for leave to appeal against the sentence. “This law is effectively tying the magistrates’ hands, giving them no discretion,” said Steve Tuson of the Wits Law Clinic. The lawyers also argued that the sentence violated Costa’s constitutional right not to be detained arbitrarily. The clinic represented Costa on a pro bono basis, saying they were motivated by “personal empathy” for the mother.
Lighting one cigarette after another as she speaks, Costa is markedly different from the pictures of the chubby-faced, smiling woman whose face was plastered all over the newspapers two years ago. She appears more withdrawn, and her eyes look tired. But she lights up when she speaks of her sons – constantly referring to “her boys”, never excluding those she killed. Costa, who lives alone, says her only hope is being reunited with her two sons, with whom she is in constant contact and has visited in Portugal. She says they are now old enough to understand the severe mental state that drove her to do what she did, and have not rejected her. “I think it would have been very painful for me if they showed they were afraid of me, but I would have to understand,” says Costa.
When the court delivered its judgement, the first people she called were her sons. “I love my children, and if I was institutionalised, I would not be able to see them, and that would be very hard for me.
“To the person who says I have no heart, to get on with my life, I will ask: Do you know what it is like to live with the consequences of actions like mine?” asks Costa.
She pauses, then adds: “For me, the worst sentence is to be alive.”