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A Karoi man who fatally struck his nine-year-old son with an iron bar before selling one of the boy’s ears and blood to strangers for ritual purposes has been convicted of murder.
Bigknows Wairosi of Murimbika Village under Chief Dandawa denied murdering his son when his trial opened before Justice Tendai Uchena last year.
The court, however, found him guilty of murder with actual intent. Justice Uchena deferred the matter to February 11 to allow the defence to address the court on extenuating circumstances.
Wairosi was paid Z$40 million by the men who wanted his son’s blood and ear.
Although, Justice Uchena felt the State’s case was porous, a guilty verdict was retained after both assessors were convinced he had killed with actual intent.
The judge was not satisfied that Wairosi was guilty but the majority rule was applied resulting in the conviction.
Charges against Wairosi arose on June 12, 2007 when he went to the Dandawa area where his sons lived with their grandmother, Mrs Eneresi Siamkonde.
Wairosi said he was taking the two boys to Karoi to process their birth certificates. However, he took them to three men who were dressed in black and they boarded the strangers’ truck. They passed through Karoi and parked in a bush where Wairosi disembarked with the younger son and left the nine-year-old in the truck with the men. Wairosi struck his son on the head twice with an iron bar and killed him. He used a pair of scissors to cut off the right ear and collected blood in a lunch box which he handed over to the men. He dumped the body at Sandara Farm after crushing the boy’s head with a stone.
The other son who witnessed all that took place fled. Wairosi then made a missing person’s report in Karoi but the murder came to light when the elder son resurfaced at the same police station where the report had been made and narrated what he had seen.