Mortuary attendant cashes in on grieving parents

Lawrence Mhuri, who is employed as a security guard and doubles up as a mortuary attendant and resides at room 12 Ex-Erego in the border town, faces three counts of contravening a section of the Criminal Law Reform and Codification Act (Violating a Corpse).
He was not asked to plead to the charges when he appeared before Beitbridge magistrate Miss Gloria Takundwa yesterday.
Mhuri, who is being represented by Mr Winston Tshakalisa of Tshakalisa Legal Practitioners, was remanded out of custody to September 1 on US$50 bail. Prosecutor Mr Jabulani Mberesi told the court that on January 1 this year Fortune Vengesai of Dulibadzimu Township in the town had a still birth.
The baby was put in the mortuary at Beitbridge District Hospital.
The accused then approached her the following day and offered to cremate the corpse at a cost of R300 using the hospital incinerator.
This was despite the fact that the incinerator had been dysfunctional for three years. He then burnt the corpse at the hospital backyard in the absence of the woman and other relatives.
Mhuri allegedly used petrol to burn the body.
The prosecutor added the accused also violated the hospital procedure and converted the R300 to his own use.
The court heard that in the second incident, which occurred on  May 16, Nomsa Jacob’s eight-month-old child died at her Alpha house in the same town. She took it to the mortuary in the company of other relatives so that they could make funeral arrangements.
They were then approached by Mhuri who offered to cremate the baby.
He demanded R 350 from the family. He was given the money and did not cremate the corpse.
He later told the relatives that he had cremated the baby in their absence.
The body was later discovered in June dumped at the hospital’s waste organic pit during a photo shoot. The mother identified the corpse during police investigations.
The state further alleged that on June 21, Locadia Hove  had a still birth at the same hospital and was also approached  by Mhuri.
The accused duped the mother in the same manner and took the body to the town’s waste management centre, which is 5km west of the hospital where he disposed of the body.
Mhuri was arrested following the discovery of the second corpse.