Fidelis Munyoro
Chief Court Reporter
IT was a domestic quarrel that should never have gone beyond a disagreement over supper.
But for Jehu Rubaba and his live-in partner of five years, Charlotte Choto, December 27, 2025, would become the night that changed the lives of two families forever.
Choto, 39, has since been sentenced to 20 years in prison after the High Court found her guilty of murder with constructive intent in aggravating circumstances.
In a judgment delivered by Justice Catherine Bachi-Mzawazi, the court heard how what began as a disagreement over food escalated into a brutal assault that left Rubaba dead and several children facing a future without their parents at home.
On that fateful evening, Rubaba returned home after a drinking session expecting a familiar meal of sadza. Instead, he found chicken and rice.
Unhappy with the menu, he reportedly decided to prepare himself his preferred meal. Choto objected, and an argument followed.
Rubaba eventually walked away to the bedroom. Choto followed him.
What happened behind that closed door was reconstructed in court through Choto’s own statements, the testimony of her nine-year-old son and medical evidence.
Choto claimed that Rubaba had attacked her first, throwing a punch that missed and smashed a bedroom window. She said he then grabbed her by the throat, forcing her to fight back.
But the court found that her response went far beyond what could reasonably be regarded as self-defence.
According to her account, she grabbed the hood of his jacket, moved behind him and began strangling him.
Even when Rubaba lost control of his bladder and bowels, she did not release her grip. Instead, his soiling of the room allegedly made her angrier.
The jacket hood tightened around his neck as he struggled for breath.
The violence continued even after Rubaba had become helpless. Choto allegedly pulled down his trousers and underwear before assaulting him with her hands.
She also used a broken metal key handle and a door handle to inflict further injuries, including wounds to his inner thighs and private parts.
Medical evidence revealed that Rubaba had suffered strangulation, asphyxia and head trauma.
When police officer Ezekiel Nyungu attended the scene, he found Rubaba’s decomposing body lying in a pool of blood. He also observed scratches on the bedroom tiles, which he interpreted as evidence of the deceased’s desperate attempts to fight for his life.
What followed was equally disturbing.
Choto called her three minor children to witness what she had done to their stepfather. She then began cleaning the bloodied and soiled bedroom, using the deceased’s clothes.
Her nine-year-old son told the court that his mother emerged from the room with a bloodied face. She subsequently bathed, changed clothes and washed the bloodstained garments before retiring to another room.
Rubaba’s body remained inside the house.
The following morning, Choto took her children to visit an elderly female friend, where they reportedly spent the day. She returned home and spent another night with the body still there.
It was only on December 29 that she went to the police, initially reporting that Rubaba had returned from a beer hall injured.
However, after officers visited the scene and questioned her, her account changed. She eventually made a statement admitting what had happened.
At trial, the central question was whether Choto had acted in lawful self-defence or had become the aggressor.
Justice Mzawazi was not persuaded by her defence.
The court found material contradictions between her defence outline, oral testimony and confirmed warned and cautioned statement, with the latter considered more consistent with the other evidence.
The judge questioned why Choto had continued strangling Rubaba after he had become visibly helpless.
Even if the deceased had initially attacked her, the circumstances had changed once she managed to free herself and move behind him.
There was no justification for continuing the assault when the danger had passed.
“The continued strangulation up to the point of breaking an adult male’s neck is not proportionate force to ward off any attack,” Justice Mzawazi observed.
The court concluded that Choto’s actions had moved beyond self-defence into an aggressive and sustained attack.
However, it drew a distinction between an actual intention to kill and constructive intention. The State had not established that Choto planned or premeditated Rubaba’s death.
But by continuing to choke him despite the obvious signs of suffocation, she ought reasonably to have foreseen that her actions could result in death.
It further found that the additional assaults inflicted on an already helpless victim amounted to torture and degrading treatment, bringing the offence within the aggravating circumstances contemplated by section 47(2)(c) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act.
When it came to sentencing, the court considered Choto’s personal circumstances. She was a first offender who had endured a difficult childhood, having been orphaned in infancy and raised by maternal relatives. She had married young, later divorced and lived with Rubaba for approximately five years.
She was also a mother of two young children and had spent close to 10 months in pre-trial detention.
The judge took note of her apparent remorse, including her willingness to accept responsibility and apologise to Rubaba’s family and the court.
But the circumstances of the killing weighed heavily against her.
Rubaba left behind four young children, while Choto’s own children had been exposed to the aftermath of a killing that could leave lasting emotional scars.
Justice Mzawazi described the incident as a needless loss of precious life over a meal.
“This death or altercation could have been prevented by a simple walking away, an exercise of self-control and anger management,” the judge said.
The judgment also raised wider concerns about domestic violence and the weakening of traditional family support systems that once helped people navigate domestic disputes.
Reflecting on the erosion of ubuntu, the judge lamented a society in which people increasingly lack the extended family networks that once provided emotional support and guidance.
The court stressed that combating domestic violence required more than arrests and court appearances. Families, communities and institutions all had a role to play.
In aggravation, the court also considered evidence suggesting that Choto had previously been physically abusive towards Rubaba, while his relatives had reportedly warned him about the relationship.
There was no evidence of battered woman syndrome to explain the killing as an expression of pent-up anger arising from prolonged abuse.
Justice Mzawazi indicated that a 25-year prison term would ordinarily have been appropriate. However, after weighing the mitigating circumstances against the seriousness of the crime, the court reduced the sentence to 20 years’ imprisonment.
And so, a disagreement over supper has become a tragedy that will outlive the prison sentence.
Four children must grow up without their father. Choto’s two children will have to navigate childhood with their mother behind bars. Two families have been left to deal with the emotional wreckage of a night that cannot be undone.
Perhaps the saddest lesson in the judgment lies in the simplicity of what could have prevented it: someone walking away.
The sadza could have waited. The argument could have ended. But anger took over, and a family paid a price that no sentence can ever fully measure.
