She was a fighter against the country's former apartheid regime when she disappeared in 1988, and for nine years her father clung to the hope she hadn't died.
Then, on March 10, Phila Portia Ndwandwe's skeleton was unearthed in a field in KwaZulu-Natal province. Authorities were led there by the man who killed her."I was shocked by the news. I really thought she was still alive," father Nason Ndwandwe recalled, shaking his head.
But instead of just another tragic postscript to another South African tale of political murder, this one is being widely hailed as a case that brought some closure, understanding and reunion.
At a funeral last month for Phila, President Nelson Mandela and other dignitaries praised her fight against apartheid.
Even more important for Ndwandwe, her son - the grandson he never knew - was there to accept her posthumous medal.
The Ndwandwe reunion is what Mandela envisioned when his government set up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995 to review the country's bloody past and grant amnesty for crimes deemed political. Through the commission's effort the fate of Phila became known, the body recovered and given a proper burial.
The relatives of many other victims in the 49-year battle to end apartheid have not been so fortunate. Thousands of family members have had problems forgiving and forgetting, or still are waiting for news of their loved ones' fate. The deadline for applying for amnesty is Saturday.
Phila's son, Thabani Mabuza, 9, turned up soon after his father heard of a newspaper story about her grave and Ndwandwe's search for the boy.
"I knew who he was by his smile. He looked just like his mother," said Ndwandwe (pronounced End-wand-way).
The shy Thabani sat on his grandfather's lap, tired after the long funeral. But stories about Phila's clowning around with her shoes on the wrong feet brought them to a hug, and laughter.
Phila, a dental student who became a commander for the secret armed wing of the African National Congress, went into exile in 1986 to neighboring Swaziland after being arrested in South Africa.
That's when Ndwandwe, a retired microbiologist for Lever Brothers, first learned his daughter was a freedom fighter.
In June 1988, the family received one of her last letters, carrying news of Thabani's birth and the name of the father, Bheki Mabuza, a fellow ANC cadre who said he only knew her code name until her grave was found and her picture was publicized.
For years thereafter, Phila's family received anonymous calls saying she was safe, and heard dark rumors of betrayal circulating in Umlazi, the Durban suburb where they lived.
But when she didn't come back with other exiles who started returning in 1990, Nason Ndwandwe went to the truth commission to report his daughter missing.
Durban investigators took his testimony and that of other families to piece together a picture of about six ANC cadres who disappeared in 1988.
They then tracked down six security branch officers who worked in KwaZulu Natal at the time. Getting information from them was not easy.
But late last year, the commission forgave the life sentence of former policeman Brian Mithchell convicted in 1992 for his role in the massacre of 11 people. That was a major turning point, said Richard Lyster, a human rights lawyer and member of the truth commission.
In March, the officers relented and led the commission on a grisly tour of places where they had buried, bombed or thrown into a river 12 activists. One of the stops was Phila's shallow burial site.