Slain daughter Gabriela was 'loving, warm' — parents

Gabriela Alban was more than a headline. The marketing executive from the US has become known as the victim in one of Cape Town's most shocking murders.

Now her parents are working to preserve the "true" Gabriela - a "loving, warm, and brilliant" young woman.

The daughter of a Mexican immigrant and a Jewish entrepreneur, Alban grew up traversing cultural barriers.

In July 2015, police found Alban's body in a Camps Bay hotel.

She had faeces smeared on her body and Diego Novella - from a gilded dynasty in Guatemala - was arrested. He has pleaded not guilty to her murder and expressed his love for her. He said it was his idea to visit a South African spiritual healer to find a cure for her Lymedisease.

"I can still remember Gabi standing on a milk crate at the counter of my restaurant interacting with customers," said her father, Howdy Kabrins. "She would always get them to try and speak un poquito [a little] Spanish. The guests always loved to interact with her."

Alban founded a marketing firm. She attended Pepperdine University in Malibu where she met Novella. The couple had a six-week relationship which ended because they had a difference of opinion over drug use, said Kabrins.

"Gabi didn't go to clubs; she went to restaurants and bars to chat. That whole scene, it was not hers at all. She started building her company at 23 years old," he said.

Alban married Dr Blake Alban in 2003. Her mother, Doris Weitz, testified in the High Court in Cape Town that during that period, Novella often wrote to her daughter to profess his love for her.

Weitz, a US State Department translator who had worked on the OJ Simpson murder trial, was given a photograph of a message left on her daughter's body. "Cerote", Weitz read out in court.

"And what does that translate to?" prosecutor Louise Freister Sampson asked.

"Piece of shit," Weitz said.

Kabrins broke down in the public gallery.

In 2010, Alban got divorced and fell ill.

"Her body was just aching like a flu that wouldn't go away. It broke my heart. I was taking her from doctor to doctor to doctor," Kabrins said.

Meanwhile, Novella and Alban rekindled their relationship and Novella began to take care of her. But soon he felt "fed up", Weitz told the court.

Alban persisted, saying she was "so in love" with Novella.

"Even if things don't go right in the long term, he is smart, good looking and has a heart of gold. I want him to be a sperm donor for my baby," Alban wrote in an SMS to her mother.

The couple fought often, but a potential cure in South Africa changed the dynamic.

Kabrins drove his only daughter to the airport in April 2015. The disease had so weakened her that she needed a wheelchair.

"When we got to the gate I told her: 'Sweetheart, please take care of yourself and do everything you can to get better. I will do anything in the world for you'," Kabrins said.

As he left, Kabrins watched the sun rise, a moment he often shared with his daughter. "Gabi and I will always have the sonrisas [smiles] and smiles. We would play off the word [its similarity to the word sunrises] and just talk about the importance of a smile, the importance of energy in the morning."