adminWalter Mswazie Masvingo Correspondent
A WOMAN from Zaka yesterday stunned a court when she maintained that she had no regrets for fatally striking her 70-year-old father with a log after he had threatened to chase her away from home over her alleged loose morals.
Eliza Chauke, 41, of Mhere Village under Chief Bota, allegedly struck Tondofa Chauke thrice on the back and once on the head.
He died seven hours later in hospital.
Appearing before High Court judge Justice Joseph Musakwa sitting with assessors Samuel Mutomba and Elphas Gweru in Masvingo, Eliza pleaded guilty to murder with actual intent.
When asked during cross-examination by prosecutor Tawanda Chikwati whether she had any regrets for having killed her father in cold blood, Eliza, who is a single mother of six children from two failed marriages, claimed full responsibility.
“I’m the one who beat him to death because I was outraged by his decision to chase me away from his homestead and yet he had cast an ancestral spirit on me. I do,’t regret it even now because I had nowhere to go with my six-months-old child,” she said.
Eliza, who was represented by Charles Ndlovu of Hwacha and Ndlovu Legal Practitioners, said she was sometimes possessed by a spirit cast upon her by her late father but was in her sober senses when she fatally assaulted him.
“I sometimes fell into a trance because of the spirit but on that day I was enraged by his behaviour hence I attacked him,” she said.
Justice Musakwa remanded her in custody to tomorrow after he questioned her state of mind at the time she committed the offence.
The judge ordered the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) to facilitate that she be mentally examined before judgment and sentence. “I order the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Service to facilitate a mental examination on the accused tomorrow (today) by two competent doctors according to Section 28 of the Mental and Health Act before she returns to court on Wednesday,” said Justice Musakwa.
For the State, Chikwati said sometime in November 2014, Eliza, who had returned to her parents’ home after two failed marriages with six children, assaulted her father with a log she had pulled from a pile of firewood.
“On November 6, 2004 at around 4PM, Chauke arrived home in Mhere Village from a beer drink and went straight to sleep since he was drunk while Eliza and her mother Elina Chauke remained in the kitchen. At around 8PM, Chauke woke up and went to the kitchen where Elina and Eliza together with the latter’s six months-old baby were sleeping,” said Chikwati.
He said Chauke went to the kitchen and ordered Eliza to leave his homestead because of her alleged loose morals.
Armed with a stick, he allegedly threatened to assault his daughter while ordering her to leave.
Eliza got enraged, allegedly shouted obscenities and snatched the stick from her father before picking up a log from a pile of firewood in the kitchen.
The court heard that Eliza struck her father twice on the back and twice on the head until he fell down screaming for help. Eliza’s mother Elina witnessed everything.
The court heard that after seeing that she had injured her father, Eliza rushed to inform the village head’s son Rodrick Mhere who rushed to the scene.
Chauke was taken to hospital where he died seven hours later.
Online Reporter