Chronicle Editor
Rutendo Nyeve and Nothando Zondo, Sunday News Reporters
A gang of three including a 44-year-old commercial sex worker has been arrested for fatally assaulting a man at Irrisvale in Umzingwane District whom they went on to attempt to hang from a tree before abandoning the body in the bush.
Besides the 44-year-old commercial sex worker, the other two are a 25-year-old man and his 57-year-old girlfriend.
The trio was accusing the now deceased of failing to pay the commercial sex worker US$15.
Lethukuthula Maphosa (25) from Chief Sikhobokhobo in Nkayi District in Matabeleland North Province together with his girlfriend, Catherine Gumbo (57) from Irrisvale and Nomsa Ncube (44), the commercial sex worker who operates at Mbalabala Business Centre have been charged with the murder of Freeman Moyo.
The three were arrested on Tuesday and appeared before Esigodini magistrate Mr Menelisi Linda on Thursday facing a charge of murder.
They were remanded in custody to 4 April and their case has been moved to the Gwanda Provincial Court.
According to the State case as presented by the prosecutor, Mr Vusani Moyo, on 11 March at about 10pm, the now deceased Moyo sought the services of Ncube at Mbalabala Business Centre and agreed to pay US$15.
The two then went to Gumbo’s place where they found her sleeping with Maphosa who is her boyfriend.
The State told the court that Ncube asked for a blanket and keys to a bedroom hut within Gumbo’s homestead and was given through the window from where Ncube and Moyo slept.
The following day at about 7am, the court was told, Ncube asked for her money from Moyo who is said to have failed to honour their agreement.
Moyo said he did not have the money.
It was the State’s case that did not go well with Ncube who went and sought the assistance of Maphosa to get her money from Moyo who was already moving out of the homestead.
The court was told that Moyo then asked Maphosa and Ncube to accompany him to the homestead where he lived which is within Irrisvale to collect the money.
Maphosa, however, took a machete from his bedroom and stashed it in his blue ripped pair of jeans in the presence of Ncube and they followed Moyo as he moved out of the yard.
The State told the court that the trio of Moyo, Ncube and Maphosa walked together along Irrrisvale Road towards the deceased’s homestead and when they were about 450 metres from Gumbo’s homestead, Maphosa searched Moyo’s pockets and took a brown wallet containing 20 Rand and 400 bond and threw it onto the ground.
At that moment Moyo is said to have taken off at high speed along the road and later turned into the bush with Maphosa hot in pursuit.
Maphosa caught up with Moyo in the bush and allegedly struck him once on the forehead with a stone and he fell before retrieving a machete from his trousers which he used to strike him on the left hand, cutting off the palm.
He went on to cut off fingers from the right hand while Moyo lay on the ground motionlessly.
Realising that Moyo was dead, the State told the court that the two tried to lift and hang Moyo from a tree but their efforts were in vain.
Maphosa is alleged to have taken the palm and fingers and put them in a small plastic bag and told Ncube that he was taking them to his traditional healer.
They left the body in the bush.
On arriving at Gumbo’s homestead, Ncube, the court heard, narrated the story to Gumbo and suggested that they report the murder to the police but Gumbo refused.
Gumbo is alleged to have cleaned Ncube’s blood-stained clothes and advised her that she was going to handle the murder.
She threatened her with undisclosed action if she reported the matter to the police.
Online Reporter