Dian Fossey - Opponents and Theories On Murder

Opponents and Theories On Murder

After Fossey's death, her entire staff, including Rwelekana, a tracker she had fired months before, were arrested. All but Rwelekana, who was later found dead in prison, supposedly having hanged himself, were released.

On the night of Fossey's murder, a metal sheeting from her bedroom was removed at the only place of the bedroom where it would not have been obstructed by her furniture, which supports the case that the murder was committed by someone who was familiar with the cabin and her day-to-day activities. The sheeting of her cabin, which was normally securely locked at night, might also have been removed after the murder to make it appear as if the killing was the work of outsiders.

Farley Mowat's biography of Fossey, Woman in the Mists (New York, NY: Warner Books, 1987), suggests that it is unlikely that she was killed by poachers. According to Mowat, it is unlikely that a stranger could have entered her cabin by cutting a hole and then going to her living-room to get the panga, giving Fossey time to escape; the number of untouched valuables also makes it unlikely to have been the act of a poor poacher. According to the book, poachers would have been more likely to kill her in the forest, with little risk to themselves. Mowat hence believes that she was killed by those who viewed her as an impediment to the touristic and financial exploitation of the gorillas. According to Linda Melvern in her book Conspiracy to Murder, Protais Zigiranyirazo, Préfet of Ruhengeri, animal trader and Rwanda's ex-president's brother-in-law, could also have been "implicated in the murder of Dian Fossey in 1985." Quoting Nick Gordon, author of a book about Fossey's death, "Another reason why she might have been murdered is that she knew too much about the illegal trafficking by Rwanda's ruling clique." Protais Zigiranyirazo also had strong financial interests in gorilla tourism.

Many of the organizations that opposed Fossey, including ORTPN (the Rwandan tourism office) and other wildlife organizations, used and continue to use her name for their financial gain up to this day. Weeks before her death, ORTPN refused to renew her visa, and pressure on Fossey was mounting. However, Fossey managed to obtain a special two-year visa through Augustin Nduwayezu, a benevolent Secretary-General in charge of immigration. Mowat believes that the extension of her visa amounted to have been a de facto death warrant.

Months before her death, Fossey signed a $1,000,000 contract with Universal Studios for a movie that was to be based on her book, Gorillas in the Mist. The prospect that her work would be funded far into the future may have contributed to her demise.

The director of ORTPN, Habirameye, who refused to renew Fossey's last visa request, insisted at the filming of Gorillas in the Mist that there should be as little about the death scene as possible.

Six months before her murder, AP East Africa Correspondent Barry Shlachter quoted Fossey in one of her last interviews as saying that she was habituating gorillas only to whites because blacks were the poachers. They said Rwandans whom she suspected of poaching had been stripped and beaten with stinging nettles by Fossey, who removed their animist amulets and held a villager's daughter captive for days. Dian's detractors used this episode against Dian even though the child was so happy to be with Dian, getting food and clothes, that she didn't want to leave Karisoke. After her murder, Fossey's National Geographic editor, Mary Smith, told Shlachter that the famed gorilla expert on visits to the United States would "load up on firecrackers, cheap toys and magic tricks as part of her method to mystify the (Africans) -- hold them at bay."

Writing in The Wall Street Journal in 2002, Tunku Varadarajan described Fossey at the end of her life as colourful, controversial, and "a racist alcoholic who regarded her gorillas as better than the African people who lived around them." However, Farley Mowat's book, Woman in the Mists, dismisses these allegations as "sick fantasies" by her detractors. In his book, Mowat writes that during her South African lecture tour, Fossey was so critical of apartheid that she was banned from South Africa. Mowat also asserts that the testimony of those closest to her and her doctors shows she was not an alcoholic. The source of the Wall Street Journal article was an interview by Dian's former student and apprentice Amy Vedder who, according to Dian, "makes her merde (feces) with the gorillas, lets them eat it and laughs about their reaction to it". Knowing how susceptible gorillas are to human diseases, Dian was furious and later forbid Vedder to ever set foot again on Karisoke soil.