It gets easier but it doesn’t go away, says Leigh Matthew’s grieving father

“Love you forever.”

If Rob Matthews could talk to his daughter, Leigh, one more time, that’s what he would say.

Leigh was kidnapped from outside her university in Morningside, Sandton, on 9 July 2004 – just a day after her 21st birthday. Twelve days later, she was found dead in an open veld in South Johannesburg.

It has been a tough 17 years for her family. And now, with Leigh’s self-confessed killer, Donovan Moodley, coming up for parole, her father says it feels as though old wounds are being opened up again.

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“It feels like day one all over again,” Matthews said on Tuesday, following a press conference at which the family announced it would be opposing Moodley’s parole bid.

Leigh’s birthday and the anniversary of her death are also both coming up next month. But, said Matthews, the family chose to focus on the former.

“We celebrate her birthday every year, that’s something we decided we would do from year one,” he said – explaining they would usually have a small gathering of friends and family over for hamburgers or the likes, and just talk about Leigh.

“It does get easier but it doesn’t go away,” he said of living with the loss of his beloved daughter.

He said it was always bittersweet seeing her friends and other people who were the age she would have been building their lives.

“We’re of course happy for them but it makes us sad thinking about what her life could have been,” he said.

He hoped she would be proud of their efforts not just to keep Moodley behind bars, but to try and improve the parole process for other victims and their families.

“It’s too easy to get wrapped up in your own misery and forget there are so many more Leighs and so many more families like ours out there. But if we could help one other person along the way, that would just be so great,” he said.