Suicide bid after maid ‘murder’ . . . 14-year-old keeps dead maid’s body for 20 hours

By Patrick Chitumba

A 14-year-old Gweru boy allegedly murdered a 41-year-old family maid in cold blood over a memory card and stayed with the body in the house for about 20 hours.

The boy who lived with the maid in Mkoba Village 20 as his parents work in Mozambique, is admitted to Gweru Provincial Hospital under police guard after attempting to commit suicide.

The boy drank some washing detergent in an attempt to kill himself when neighbours called the police.

His condition is said to be stable.

The boy allegedly clobbered the maid with a hoe handle until she died on Sunday following a misunderstanding over a memory card and dragged the body into the toilet.

When a Chronicle news crew visited the murder scene yesterday morning, the body of the maid, Nyarai Mandonzva, was still in the toilet.

Clotted blood was all over the floor in the toilet and hundreds of residents had gathered outside the house waiting for the police forensic officers.

Neighbours said they suspected Mandonzva was murdered at around 11PM on Sunday, the time they heard her screaming.

The two, according to sources were fighting over a memory card which Mandonzva accused the boy of stealing.

The boy allegedly clobbered Mandonzva to death while they were in the lounge and then dragged the body into the toilet.

The murder suspect, a Form Two pupil at a school in Gweru and the maid were the only people staying at the house.

Tinei Moyo, a neighbour, said he heard the maid screaming at around 11PM on Sunday.

He said he wanted to investigate but later ignored it when the noise just died down.

“On Sunday evening we heard a cry from their house but it quickly died down. So we thought everything was alright. On Monday morning we didn’t see the maid and when we asked the boy about her whereabouts he said she had gone to church for prayers,” said Moyo.

He said later that day, his wife told him that another neighbour told her that the boy had told him that Mandonzva had gone to town.

“So there were two conflicting reports from the boy on the whereabouts of Mandonzva which raised suspicion given the fact that we had all heard someone crying from that house the previous day,” said Moyo.

On Monday evening at around 7PM, neighbours decided to check on the house.

“After peeping through a toilet window, we saw the body of Mandonzva lying on the floor. We then called the police,” said Moyo.

He said while the police where attempting to open the door, the boy drank some cleaning detergent.

He was found vomiting while lying on his bed and was arrested.

Midlands provincial police spokesperson, Inspector Joel Goko confirmed the incident.

Late last year, a teenager from Gweru, Kudakwashe Ashley Sibanda, 19, of Southdowns suburb, allegedly killed his mother by stabbing her five times with a kitchen knife because she had refused to give him money and her vehicle. The Chronicle