Online Reporter
You Can’t Make This Up
SOMETIMES walking away from a silly dispute is the wisest thing to do.
Unfortunately, the lesson came too late for 27-year-old Collen Ishmael, who will now spend 20 years in the slammer for a dispute over a US$5 transportation fee that went horribly wrong.
The same cannot be said for 23-year-old Ellias Kavhumbura Chimutiso, who unfortunately lost his life after the altercation.
Trouble began on April 6, 2026, at 1pm, in Wentworth, Redcliff, when Chimutiso hired Ishmael to transport his groceries from Mutegude Business Centre to his residence using an ox-drawn scotch cart.
The two agreed on a US$5 fee for the services. It was the sort of small transaction that happens every day — someone needs goods moved, someone has the means to move them, a price is agreed on and everyone goes their separate ways. Except this time, they did not.
Everything was going smoothly until the delivery landed at the destination and Chimutiso noticed that some of his groceries had mysteriously gone missing en route.
Naturally, he pulled the standard customer-service protocol: No full delivery, no US$5. Now, a normal person might retrace their steps, check the back of the cart or just curse under their breath and take the loss. But not Chimutiso.
In his wisdom, or lack thereof, his missing goods were worth going to war over.
The two men got into a fistfight inside Chimutiso’s tuck shop. A witness unsuccessfully tried to restrain them. The fight continued outside the tuck shop. It was at this point that Ishmael went to his scotch cart. He returned armed with an axe and was literally swinging.
He struck Chimutiso with the axe twice.
The first blow landed on his left shin.
The second struck the right side of his head.
The head wound proved fatal.
Chimutiso fell to the ground, bleeding profusely, while Ishmael took to his heels.
Police were called and attended to the scene before taking Chimutiso to Kwekwe General Hospital. He was pronounced dead on arrival.
The following day, Ishmael was arrested.
Police subsequently recovered the axe from his bedroom. A post-mortem established the cause of Chimutiso’s death as brain injury resulting from severe head trauma and assault.
What had begun with a simple request to transport groceries ended with a young man dead and another facing the consequences of a murder conviction.
Ishmael was sentenced by the High Court sitting in Gweru after being convicted of murder. That leaves a particularly grim lesson from a dispute that should never have gone anywhere near a courtroom.
In the end, the US$5 was not paid, the groceries were not recovered and Ishmael got 20 years to think about why an argument over such a paltry amount could be resolved using an axe.
