James Badrian

James Badrian competed as a flyweight boxer for Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) at the 1960 Roma Olympics, losing his first-round bout. A printer by trade, he moved his family, with a wife and three children, to South Africa in the mid-1960s.

In February 1969 Badrian had gone out to get some food supplies at the store when an intruder entered the home and violently killed his wife, Geraldine, stabbing her 14 times. When the police arrived Badrian had returned, and he was arrested for the murder.

The children were taken by their grandmother, Badrian’s mother, and lived with her in Zambia for nine months as he was held in jail, until Badrian was finally released and went free. The murderer was never found. Badrian later settled in Ndola, Zambia with the children and ran his father’s butcheries and owned a cattle farm. He re-married and had further children but sadly died when he was only 39-years-old, just over 10 years after Geraldine’s death.