Chronicle Editor
Midlands Bureau
A 17-YEAR-OLD stepmother has been sentenced to two years in jail for strangling her stepson (13) to death before tying his body to a small tree in a bid to make it look like the boy had committed suicide.
The girl, name withheld to protect her identity since she is a minor, appeared before High Court Judge, Justice Munamato Mutevedzi, who is sitting at the Gweru High Court circuit on Friday, facing one count of murder.
Maride represented by prominent Gweru-based lawyer, Mr Easu Mandipa of Mandipa, Makwara and Chikukwa Legal Practice tendered a not-guilty plea to murder but tendered a plea of guilty to the lesser offence of culpable homicide.
The State, which was represented by Ms Angeline Munyeriwa accepted the limited plea. Justice Mutevedzi sentenced the young woman to two years in prison wholly suspended for three years on condition of good behaviour.
Passing the sentence, Justice Mutevedzi said men should desist from marrying young girls as this posed great tragedy to many families and the society at large.
He said in the present case, the accused person was in a sexually abusive child marriage and that led to the tragedy at hand.
“Now, go back to your mother immediately and be a very well behaved girl and go back to school,” said Justice Mutevedzi.
In mitigation through her lawyer, the accused presented that she was a child, a first offender who pleaded guilty to the charge.
“The accused is a minor who was in child marriage and acted through anger and that she is very remorseful for having committed the offence,” she said.
It was the State’s case presented by Ms Munyeriwa that the accused was aged 17 at the time of the commission of the offence.
“The deceased (name withheld) was 13. The two lived together at Guchutu Village under Chief Chirumanzu. The accused was married to the deceased’s father. She had been married to him since she was 16,” the court heard.
Ms Munyeriwa said on the fateful day around 10am, the accused sent the deceased to fetch water from a nearby well.
“The deceased refused and an altercation ensued between the two, which altercation degenerated into a fist fight,” she said.
During the fist fight, the accused was overpowered by the deceased, which then prompted the accused to strangle him by the neck.
The accused only let go of the complaint when he was limp and he fell down before she tried to resuscitate him to no avail.
“Upon realising that the deceased was dead, she panicked and staged the deceased’s suicide by tying the deceased to a nearby small tree in the yard with a curtain to make it look like he had hung himself,” the court heard.
Ms Munyeriwa said the accused went to church at 11am and told Angela Makusha a church mate about the offence and they went back together to the scene.
“The deceased’s father was informed and he reported the matter to the police leading to the arrest of the accused. The State conceded that the accused did not desire to bring about the death of the deceased and that in the heat of the moment she killed the deceased in a bid to ward off an attack by her stepson whom she felt she had the right to chastise,” she said.
Online Reporter