Murder cases on the rise
Crime Reporter
TWO people are believed to have been murdered in separate incidents this week before their bodies were found hanging in unclear circumstances in Battlefields and Highfield respectively.
Police have since launched investigations into these two murder cases. No arrests have since been made.
In Highfield, a man was found hanging at an entrance of a bar on Monday morning and police suspect that he could have been robbed and fatally assaulted by unknown assailants.
The man believed to have been a gold panner, was drinking beer at a shopping centre popularly known as MaStones when the incident occurred.
Police said in Battlefields, Cosmas Mataruse (19) was found dead and his body was in a decomposing state a few days after he had been embroiled in a dispute with another man over a cellphone he had dropped.
National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said last Thursday, Mataruse was at a shopping centre in Battlefields where he dropped his cellphone which was then picked up by the man, aged 25.
Mataruse is alleged to have later confronted the man who denied having picked up the cellphone and this resulted in an argument. The man later left and it is reported that Mataruse later followed him and no one knows what happened after that.
“His body was found two days later in a sitting position and he had a wire tied to his neck and then tied on a tree branch about 158 metres from a gravel road. The body was in a decomposing state.
“We are still investigating the case since the circumstances are not clear. It is still not clear what transpired,” Asst Comm Nyathi said.
In a related incident, a Bulawayo man was fatally assaulted with a bench on the head by one of his colleagues he was drinking beer with at a shebeen after being accused of selling him a defective car battery.
Tapiwa Jongwe (44) was also in the company of his wife when the incident occurred. He died on admission at Mpilo Hospital a few hours after the incident.
Police have since arrested one suspect, Ozias Lupahle while the other one is still at large.
The latest cases come after police have expressed concern over the increase in murders largely due to rituals, infidelity, domestic disputes, alcohol abuse and debts .
The remarks came at a time police intensified investigations into the murder of a seven-year-old Murehwa boy, Tapiwa Makore.
There are concerns that some people no longer value the importance of human life as minor disputes are ending up in loss of life.
In Bikita, a 32-year-old man killed his 73-year-old father following a misunderstanding over a debt while a 22-year-old man killed his wife in Kwekwe after he found her being intimate with another man.
In Beitbridge, a suspected thief was fatally assaulted by members of the public after stealing seven boxes of cooking oil that were loaded in a parked vehicle while another man killed his ex-wife in Binga following a misunderstanding.
An Epworth man also stabbed his landlord to death following a dispute .
A 42-year-old Nkayi man went into hiding after allegedly striking his wife to death together with her suspected lover with an axe, following an altercation over an extramarital affair.
In Kezi, a 44-year-old man was recently arrested after axing his wife to death following a domestic dispute.
Last week, a 36-year-old man in Wedza was fatally assaulted after he was found being intimate with another man’s wife at a homestead he had gone to drink beer.
The woman’s husband caught them in the act and assaulted the man with a log on the head resulting in his death a few minutes later.
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