FUNERAL CRASHER: Wife Noela Rukundo Crashes Her Own Funeral, Much to Husband’s Surprise, Who Had Paid to Have Her Killed … Balenga Kalala, Ultimately Pleaded Guilty & Sentenced to 9 Years in Prison

REAL LIFE FUNERAL CRASHERS, WHERE’S WILL FERRELL …

Noela Rukundo, an Australian woman, returned to her native Africa to travel to Burundi to attend her attend her stepmother’s funeral when she was abducted by a gang of men. They had been ordered by her husband of 10 years to kill her. The amazing part, she was spared by the hitmen with principles. Hmm, I guess there is sometimes honor among thieves. After having kidnapped her, the men said, they weren’t going to kill her, they didn’t believe in killing women. Instead, they called the husband and told him the job was done. According to Australia’s The Age newspaper, two days later, they set her free on the side of a road, but not before giving her a cellphone, recordings of their phone conversations with Kalala, and receipts for the $7,000 in Australian dollars they allegedly received in payment.

Noela Rukundo was presumed dead by her partner and their entire community who held a funeral in her home in Melbourne, Australia, in her memory early last year. Much to all of their surprise, after all of the mourners had left, she approached her former love who was under the impression that his wife was not only dead, but that he had got away with his murderous plan. That’s when she approached him and replied, “Surprise! I’m still alive!” Her husband looked like he’d seen a ghost. Eventually, her husband, Balenga Kalala, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 9 years in prison.

Balenga Kalala, who arrived in Australia in 2004 as a refugee, paid almost $7,000 to a group of kidnappers to kill the mother of his three children, Noela Rukundo, when she was attending her stepmother’s funeral in Burundi in early 2015.

The group snatched Ms Rukundo at gunpoint outside her hotel in Bujumbura in February and drove her to a secret location.

The WAPO:

Finally, she spotted the man she’d been waiting for. She stepped out of her car, and her husband put his hands on his head in horror.

“Is it my eyes?” she recalled him saying. “Is it a ghost?”

“Surprise! I’m still alive!” she replied.

Far from being elated, the man looked terrified. Five days earlier, he had ordered a team of hit men to kill Rukundo, his partner of 10 years. And they did — well, they told him they did. They even got him to pay an extra few thousand dollars for carrying out the crime.

Now here was his wife, standing before him. In an interview with the BBC on Thursday, Rukundo recalled how he touched her shoulder to find it unnervingly solid. He jumped. Then he started screaming.

“I’m sorry for everything,” he wailed.

But it was far too late for apologies; Rukundo called the police. The husband, Balenga Kalala, ultimately pleaded guilty and was sentenced to nine years in prison for incitement to murder, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. (the ABC).