Mother who survived cancer twice dies after husband kept twisted secret from her
When Denise Broadie beat breast cancer the first time, her family was overjoyed.
When it returned in 2019 and spread to her lungs, she defied the odds and beat it again.
But when she fell ill a third time, doctors discovered something far more sinister.
A hospital-ordered test revealed the 65-year-old didn't have cancer — she had HIV, and it had progressed to AIDS.
Denise died just two days later, leaving her family devastated and searching for answers.
Her husband of eight years, Cleveland Broadie, now 62, claimed he didn't have HIV and couldn't have passed it on to her.
But the family claims they found his nightstand drawers filled with HIV medication.
Prosecutors have accused him of knowing about having HIV since 2006, eight years before he married Denise.
Broadie was initially charged with reckless conduct related to HIV in 2023, but the charge has since been upgraded to felony murder. Two other women have also come forward, accusing him of having sex with them while he was infected with HIV.
Denise's family allege that at no time did Cleveland tell their mother he had HIV or warn her that she should get tested for the disease.
They also claim that he insisted on wearing a condom with Denise even after they were married, which at the time led to allegations that he was cheating.
Her daughter Karen Young told Business RadioX: 'Our mother married this man. She loved him, she thought he loved her.
'He cared for her and watched her die, he slowly watched her die, and at no point... throughout her battle with cancer did he ever mention the fact that, "You could have HIV" or "I have HIV, you could have it".'
She added that she was also distressed that, had her mother known she had HIV, she could have been given drugs to help treat her infection — allowing her to continue to live a relatively normal life.
In April, Broadie of Rockdale County was indicted by a grand jury on charges of malice murder and felony murder in connection with the death of his wife.
Cleveland had already pleaded not guilty to reckless conduct charges, and has not yet entered a plea for the other charges.
About 1.2million people in the US have HIV, of which roughly one in ten do not know they are infected.
People who are infected with HIV are told to disclose their status to sexual partners to avoid prosecution in many states, including Georgia.
Individuals with HIV can be prosecuted for failing to do this, even if they do not pass on the disease.
According to reports from Atlanta News First, Denise met Cleveland at a Christmas party in 2012, and the relationship moved quickly — with the pair reportedly discussing moving in together within six months.
They married in 2014, and lived together at Denise's home in Rockdale County.
In a radio interview, the family claimed they had no major concerns over Broadie at the time — although there were allegations that he was cheating on Denise.
At one point, they said he was kicked out of the house for cheating — but was later allowed to move back in.
In 2017, Denise was diagnosed with breast cancer — with the whole family rallying around to help her with chemotherapy and to fundraise for treatments. She went into remission, but in 2019 the cancer returned in her lungs.
She fought off the cancer again, but remained weak — and was hospitalized again.
It is possible an active HIV infection made her more vulnerable because the viral cells attack the immune system, weakening its ability to fight infections and destroy cancer cells.
Denise died on April 2, 2022, from pneumonia and respiratory failure related to an underlying HIV infection.
After her death, Denise's home was transferred to Broadie, her family claim — who is alleged to have then transferred it to his new girlfriend to sell the house.
He is also alleged to have given away her handbags and jewelry, and to have taken all her clothes to good will.
Young, Denise's middle daughter, said that he would only speak to the family via text messages, where he insisted that he had not given their mother HIV.
He changed the locks on her home immediately after her death, which led the family to force entry into the property about a month after Denise died.
Young said: 'When we finally got into the house, we searched the bedroom and all the drawers.
'And in his nightstand were pill bottles. And I opened the pill bottles because he had ripped the labels off of the bottles, only one label was on a bottle and it said Viagra.
'So I took the pills out of that Viagra bottle and took a picture of them, it was two or three little blue pills, I took a picture of the front and back of the pills and then took a picture of the bottles so I can Google and see what type of pills these really were.
'He also had some wrapped in a napkin also in that drawer, so I took a picture of those as well.
'When I googled the pills when we got back home, I saw that the blue ones were HIV treatment drugs.'
Broadie was arrested in July, 2023, with prosecutors later alleging that he had had sexual encounters with another woman as recently as March that year.
If convicted of a felony murder, he could be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
HIV is spread via contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, including blood, breast milk, semen and vaginal fluids.
Within two to four weeks of infection, patients suffer from a flu-like illness causing a fever, headache and rash to appear.
Patients then enter the chronic stage of infection, where they appear normal and do not have any symptoms but HIV continues to multiply in the body at very low levels. This stage can last for years.
Eventually, the disease progresses to AIDS, where it causes severe damage to the immune system leaving the body unable to fight off infections. Within three years, patients die from the disease.
HIV can be reduced to near-undetectable levels using medications, allowing patients to live a normal and healthy life.
Doctors have not yet found a way to cure a patient of an HIV infection, which lasts for life.
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