Online Reporter
Isdore Guvamombe-Reflections
THE rugged terrain of interlocking valleys, hills, hillocks and mountains in Mavare area, southwest of Guruve is relentlessly unforgiving.
The vagaries of nature make the place not very trafficable, largely inhabitable and unpleasant.
But there are farms and dotted villages here. It is the last Saturday before schools open for the 2026 first term and on times like these, villagers do everything to ensure their children go to school prepared.
But, villagers abandon every preparatory chore and gather to witness a very rare spectacle. At about 7am, police vehicles screech to a halt.
The media-shy and serious-faced officers are in no-nonsense mood.
They order every villager gathered to switch off phones. They scan for any journalists and nip one suspect out of the crowd and escort him away.
Six of the officers carry Guruve serial killer Anymore Zvitsva on a stretcher as he leads them to where he buried two victims, Charity Karembera (24) and her son Tendai (3).
Most relatives of the deceased and villagers have a ringside glimpse of Zvitsa for the first time, and are shocked by his ease.
They are further shocked by his precision in locating the shallow, yet firmly secured graves, 10 months after the murder.
Officers exhume Charity’s remains first, but the head is missing. Zvitsva explains what happened to the head, but for journalistic purposes it cannot be written, except that it borders on cannibalism and body parts trafficking.
He gives names of some ritualist gold panners, much to the chagrin of the crowd.
Zvitsva also talks about the other missing body parts.
But what is evident to all and sundry, is that the body was chopped into pieces taking advantage of joins, limbs and rib cage, with a knife and placed into a sack. Hence the grave was small. He had carefully marked the grave.
Pathologists present, try to put the remains together in what I will call reconstruction, for lack of proper diction.
Villagers and relatives wail and weep. Zvitsva is emotionless. His eyes simply scan the crowd.
Thereafter, he leads to the grave of Tendai on the foot of a hill, but is firmly secured with stones. It has never been tampered with. The remains are found intact and the clothes the toddler is wearing are easily identified by relatives.
For that moment Zvitsva shows emotion. “I felt pity for the child after I killed the mother and killed him, too.”
Flashback
It is a wintry morning on March 25 2025 and am sitting in my office at Herald House, chugging a soft drink and planning work.
My phone rings and it is Peter Chidhawu Karembera, a long-time acquaintance of mine in Guruve, a close relative and farm neighbour. He wears a long heavy jacket on him to beat the wind and had an old Ipad in one hand.
I allow him into the office, albeit through the security checkpoint. Karembera, a staunch member of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Sect, is a bubbly bearded character, very intelligent and humorous. I ask him about his wives and he is happy to say they are all fine.
Being a former teacher and veterinary officer, he is that character, who breaks jokes and leaves your ribcage cracking with laughter.
But he does not laugh himself, he just smiles with one corner of his lip and proceeds as if nothing happened.
Between jokes and drinks, he announces his retirement from Government service, but before his narration ends, he receives a phone call.
His elder brother Isaiah’s daughter, Charity, and her son Tendai, are missing. Charity is married and the husband has reported her and their son missing since the previous day.
Apparently, Karembera had come to town to check on his pension.
With his pension, Karembera buys a truck to start a new line of business and as soon as news spreads to the relatives, they started accusing him of killing Charity for rituals.
They could not understand his sudden ability to buy a car.
But Karembera was naïve. He genuinely tries to help find Charity and Tendai and becomes an integral part of the search.
The search took them to mountains and villages. Then it took them to the underworld of prophets and traditional healers.
“We lost a fortune. One prophet after another, lied to us that Charity was still alive. As late as last week, after Zvitsva had already been arrested, one prophet told us Charity was well and sound, working as a maid in Harare.
‘We were misled, but we believed. We had hope. But the most painful thing is that while we travelled as a family, mostly using the very same truck I bought, behind the scenes my relatives accused me of making Charity disappear for rituals to keep my trucking business running.
But on Saturday when Zvitsva led police to Charity and Tendai’s shallow graves, family members confessed, they had always suspected it was poor Peter.
On Saturday, Zvitsva brought closure and finality to the Karembera family, at least, on what happened to Charity and her son Tendai.
It was a puzzle he unlocked but to the nation, there are more questions than answers as to the motive and also at to how many people Zvitsva killed, since Charity and her son, Tendai were not documented among the first 19 reported.
