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Background: News footage of Cleveland Broadie during his court appearance (WANF). Inset: Cleveland Broadie (Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office).
A Georgia man has been indicted on murder charges after his wife died after being diagnosed with AIDS — and prosecutors say he knew he was HIV-positive and never told her.
Cleveland Broadie, who is in his early 60s, was previously charged with reckless conduct after his wife, Denise Broadie, died in April 2022, two days after she was diagnosed with having AIDS. Now, a grand jury has indicted him for malice murder and felony murder in connection to Denise Broadie’s death.
After she passed away, Denise Broadie’s family members suspected that their stepfather knew full well he was HIV-positive when he married their mother in 2014 and neglected to tell her about his status. WAGA, a local Fox affiliate, spoke to the family, who hired a private investigator to look into the life Cleveland Broadie had before he joined their family.
Denise Broadie was also battling cancer in the last years of her life. She had first been diagnosed in 2017, according to WANF, a local CBS affiliate, then went into remission. The cancer returned in 2019, and Denise Broadie beat it again.
But she reportedly remained ill. When she went to a different hospital for treatment, new tests were administered, revealing that she had AIDS. According to an arrest warrant reviewed by Law&Crime, Denise Broadie was diagnosed with AIDS on March 31, 2022, “which resulted in her death” on April 2, 2022.
Her family says she may have been living with AIDS for years without knowing it, years during which she could have been treated for the disease.
But according to her daughter, Karen Young, Cleveland Broadie never gave her the truth.
Young told WAGA, “There was malice in what he did. At any time, he could have told her and given her the right to make the decision to stay with him. Not that she would have.”
Court records showed that Cleveland Broadie faced three charges of reckless conduct related to his wife’s death, all filed in 2023. Prosecutors alleged at the time that he had known of his HIV-positive status since 2006 and never informed his sexual partners.
According to WANF, another woman came forward, sparking a second reckless conduct charge. A third charge soon followed when yet another woman came forward. The station reported that “multiple women” had come forward in response to its story.
Cleveland Broadie was arrested and taken into custody on July 8, 2023. He pleaded not guilty to the three reckless conduct charges. It was not immediately clear as of Friday whether he had entered a plea to the murder charges.
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