Noela Rukundo, The Woman Who Crashed Her Own Funeral After Her Husband Hired Hitmen To Kill Her
Kazungu Bembereza/FacebookNoela Rukundo’s husband believed she was cheating on him, so he hired men to kill her.
Balenga Kalala believed his wife, Noela Rukundo, was cheating on him. So, in January 2015, when she returned to her home country of Burundi, Kalala paid a group of men $7,000 in Australian dollars to kidnap and murder her.
The hired men actually went through with the kidnapping — but they refused to kill Rukundo. They had a rule: They would not kill women or children.
They did, however, call the man who hired them while Rukundo was within earshot — and she fainted when she heard her husband’s voice come through the phone.
When she awoke, a new plot had begun to unfold. The men wouldn’t kill her, but they would extort her husband for even more money. They informed him that the murder fee had increased and requested an additional $3,400.
They kept Rukundo with them for two days, letting Kalala think she was dead, then dropped her off on the side of the road with incriminating evidence that would put her husband away. This included a memory card with recorded phone conversations, and money transfer receipts linking back to Kalala.
The story took an even more surprising twist when Rukundo returned home on the evening of Feb. 22, 2015 to find a group of family and friends leaving her home — where a memorial service had just been held in her honor.
Rukundo confronted her husband, then called the police. In the end, Balenga Kalala was sentenced to nine years in prison, and Rukundo said she felt no ill will towards him.
