Charleston planned to visit Puzey's post, but then the news came, garbled and incomplete at first: a volunteer was dead. The phone was cutting in and out, so Charleston could not make out the name. She did not learn it was Puzey until she was back at the regional office. "I think it was just shock," she said. "I don't really remember leaving the (office) for the next couple of days." Volunteers and local friends alike were stunned. The Peace Corps held a memorial service in the country and brought in a psychologist to counsel the grieving. Each volunteer had the option to leave. But most stayed, including Charleston, who came home for her brother's wedding and returned, saying she feeling safe despite the tragedy. "We committed two years to serving our country, and that's what we wanted to do," she said. "Kate, I think, wouldn't have wanted us to pull out. She was very committed to what she was doing." Several men have reportedly been jailed in the case, Charleston said. Benin's American ambassador did not respond to a Daily News e-mail, and the Peace Corps declined to comment, other than to confirm an ongoing local investigation and note its condolences for the family and its desire for justice. Charleston is skeptical a trial will be held. She also knows it won't bring Puzey back and simply wants her friend remembered. Despite the tragedy, she still recommends the Peace Corps, and the Peace Corps in Benin. She also plans to work abroad again someday. Puzey has been memorialized at Peace Corps headquarters, along with other volunteers who never returned home.
Benin RPCV Alicia Charleston remembers murdered PCV Kate Puzey
Peace Corps volunteer from Hopkinton remembers murdered friend
By Michael Morton/Daily News staff
MetroWest Daily News
Posted Jan 14, 2011 @ 12:19 AM
Caption: Alicia Charleston of Hopkinton shows a photo of her friend Kate Puzey who was murdered while working for the Peace Corps in Benin, West Africa.
HOPKINTON -
After nearly two years, Alicia Charleston still thinks about the affable fellow Peace Corps volunteer who wished her happy birthday when they were strangers and bonded with her over a shared Georgia connection.
Charleston, 26, returned from her posting in the West African nation of Benin in October and is living with her parents in Hopkinton before her public health program at Boston University begins in earnest.
The fellow volunteer, a petite brunette from Georgia named Catherine "Kate" Puzey, was found murdered at her Benin home in March 2009 - just months before the 24-year-old was due home from her two-year service stint.
"I still think about her nearly every single day," Puzey said.
Puzey's case is the subject of tonight's episode of ABC's newsmagazine "20/20," with a network blog explaining that one of its journalists will look at reports that the volunteer English teacher had blown the whistle on a local Peace Corps employee suspected of raping students.
The episode will also examine reports that more than 1,000 female Peace Corps volunteers worldwide have been sexually assaulted within the last decade, with some victims saying coverups helped protect the organization's image.
A Peace Corps spokesman said in an e-mail that it will not respond to the ABC piece until it has aired, but that the organization goes to great lengths to keep all volunteers safe and healthy.
Roughly 8,600 Americans participated in the Peace Corps last fall. Among the 200,000 or so who have served since the group's 1961 founding, 269 have died, most of them in transportation accidents.
Nearly two dozen were murdered, with three other killings within the last 10 years, in Zimbabwe and Lesotho in Africa and the Philippines in Asia.
A bound Puzey was found on her porch with her throat slit, Charleston said, declining to speculate on who might be responsible. After her mother contacted the Daily News, Charleston said she didn't want to criticize the Peace Corps or tarnish its reputation, but rather to publicize the case and tell others about her friend.
"I want the word to get out about what happened," she said.
After a job in Atlanta, Charleston joined the Peace Corps, eager to see a new part of the world and possibly get experience for a public health career. She was assigned to work with small businesses and entrepreneurs in Benin instead. She arrived July 4, 2008.
Puzey had been in the country a year and warmly welcomed the new recruit upon learning it was her birthday. The pair later visited at one of Benin's regional Peace Corps offices, in the town where Charleston was stationed.
Her new friend may have been small in stature, but she made up for it with her personality, Charleston said. Puzey was a realist - she did not expect to save the world - but also wanted to help as many people as possible.
"She was like an all-American girl," Charleston said.
Charleston planned to visit Puzey's post, but then the news came, garbled and incomplete at first: a volunteer was dead. The phone was cutting in and out, so Charleston could not make out the name. She did not learn it was Puzey until she was back at the regional office.
"I think it was just shock," she said. "I don't really remember leaving the (office) for the next couple of days."
Volunteers and local friends alike were stunned. The Peace Corps held a memorial service in the country and brought in a psychologist to counsel the grieving.
Each volunteer had the option to leave. But most stayed, including Charleston, who came home for her brother's wedding and returned, saying she feeling safe despite the tragedy.
"We committed two years to serving our country, and that's what we wanted to do," she said. "Kate, I think, wouldn't have wanted us to pull out. She was very committed to what she was doing."
Several men have reportedly been jailed in the case, Charleston said. Benin's American ambassador did not respond to a Daily News e-mail, and the Peace Corps declined to comment, other than to confirm an ongoing local investigation and note its condolences for the family and its desire for justice.
Charleston is skeptical a trial will be held. She also knows it won't bring Puzey back and simply wants her friend remembered. Despite the tragedy, she still recommends the Peace Corps, and the Peace Corps in Benin. She also plans to work abroad again someday.
Puzey has been memorialized at Peace Corps headquarters, along with other volunteers who never returned home.
(Michael Morton can be reached at 508-626-4338 or mmorton@cnc.com.)
