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Jean Sigauke, Sunday News Reporter
A 16-YEAR-OLD Form Three pupil at Gwambe Secondary School from Tjolambe Village in Bulilima District was raped and strangled to death on her way to school by a herdboy employed at her homestead.
According to a police memo seen by Sunday News the incident took place on 24 October at about 5.30am when the girl was going to school, five kilometres from her homestead.
The family is said to have suspected that something was amiss when she had not returned home from school by 7pm, an hour from her usual expected time.
A relative then enquired from one of her classmates who lives in the same village and was told that she had not reported for school on that day.
The following day, the family went to the school where it was ascertained that indeed she had not reported for school the previous day.
“On the same day at around 4pm, one Mthokozisi Mkhwananzi was passing through a bushy area near the deceased’s place of residence from taking his donkeys to drink at the nearby borehole, when his dogs chased a hare within the bush and he followed up the dogs and it was then that he saw the deceased’s dark blue and maroon satchel from a distance of about 20 metres and beside the satchel was her body lying in a gully,” reads the police memo.
After the discovery of the body, the girl’s family and neighbours proceeded to the scene before calling the police to attend.
The body was discovered with the skirt raised to the waist and a black skin tight she was wearing, hanging on the right leg. She was not wearing her underwear.
She also had her school neck tie tied around the neck and around the right thigh thereby lifting the leg upwards revealing that sexual intercourse had taken place.
There was also a green pair of work suit trousers which was tied around the girl’s neck and covering the face. The skin around her head had peeled off and was hanging thereby exposing the skull.
Two blood stained t-shirts and a pair of khaki trousers were put underneath the body an indication that the suspect had prepared it as bedding suspectedly during sexual intercourse.
They also recovered a birth certificate belonging to the suspect, the 33-year-old Qhubekani Ncube at the scene.
The body of the deceased was positively identified by her brother-in-law, while all the recovered property at the scene was identified by the brother-in-law’s two children as belonging to the suspect.
The body was taken to Plumtree District Hospital pending a post-mortem at the United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH).
Online Reporter