Online Reporter
Emmanuel Kafe
Features Writer
THEY do not arrive with horns or warning signs, but politely sit quietly in our midst and move through daily life unnoticed.
Then a body is found in the bush, another person vanishes and rumours begin to stride faster than truth. Sometimes it lives next door.
That unsettling truth confronted the Guruve community of Mashonaland Central Province, recently. Women disappeared, families searched and communities whispered. Something was wrong, but it had no name. Then a man emerged from the fog of rumour and became a headline.
Enter Zvitsva, the stealth predator
Anymore Zvitsva, the new menace of Guruve, operated quietly and methodically, targeting mainly vulnerable women who moved alone or were socially and economically exposed.
He now faces eight counts of murder covering 19 alleged victims, alongside charges of attempted murder and rape.
Southern Africa’s gallery of predators
In South Africa in the 1990s, Moses Sithole, dubbed the “ABC Killer” because his crimes stretched from Atteridgeville to Boksburg and Cleveland, was convicted of raping and murdering dozens of women.
His sentence of more than 2 000 years was symbolic.
There was also Cedric Maake, the “Wemmer Pan Killer”, who stalked Johannesburg’s streets with terrifying regularity in the 1990s and was convicted of killing 27 people.
Known as the “West End Serial Killer,” Jack Mogale murdered at least 16 people between 2008 and 2009, many of whom elderly or vulnerable.
Beyond Africa
Beyond Africa, the list of serial killers is chillingly long.
In the former Soviet Union, Andrei Chikatilo, a schoolteacher, murdered at least 52 women and children between the late 1970s and 1990.
In the United States, Aileen Wuornos shattered stereotypes. A homeless sex worker, she killed seven men along Florida highways between 1989 and 1990.
Then there was Ted Bundy in the 1970s, who lured dozens of young women across multiple states, kidnapping, raping and murdering them.
His execution in 1989 changed how America understood danger.
A common pattern
Criminologists define serial killers as offenders who kill repeatedly over time, separated by “cooling-off” periods that can last months or years.
Those pauses distinguish them from mass murderers who kill many at once.
Zimbabwe has, until recently, been spared frequent headlines of this kind. Yet there are names that still echo uneasily.
Brighton Zhantali remains etched in collective memory, linked to the rape and murder of women across several places in 2022, including in Marondera, Mutare, Rusape and Goromonzi.
A serial rapist from Chivi, Charles Magombedze, was sentenced to an effective 72 years in jail in 2018 after pleading guilty to eight counts of rape and shocking the court by requesting a death sentence, saying he could not exorcise the evil that drove him to commit the crimes.
Years later, the Zvitsva case has reopened those psychological wounds.
His case has already thrust Zimbabwe into a global conversation about serial murder and the fragile boundary between the ordinary and the monstrous.
Psychologists urge caution
“Most serial killers are not psychotic,” says Dr Mercy Matare, a Harare-based criminal psychologist. “They do not hallucinate voices that command them to kill. Many are chillingly rational. They plan, calculate and conceal.”
What often emerges, she explains, are deep-seated personality disorders, particularly antisocial personality disorder marked by emotional detachment and lack of remorse, sometimes combined with childhood trauma or abuse.
“The human brain can compartmentalise empathy,” Dr Matare says. “Some individuals learn early that other people’s pain is irrelevant. Others experience such severe neglect or violence that they internalise cruelty as power. Still, others are driven by sexual compulsions, fantasies or the thrill of control.”
She pauses before answering her own question: “Is it normal? No. But it is human and that is what frightens us most.”
Dr Stephen Bhebhe, also a psychologist, cautions against simple explanations.
There is no “serial killer gene”, no universal link to witchcraft and no single cause rooted in poverty alone. Rather, serial violence develops at the intersection of multiple forces.
“Certain warning signs appear with troubling consistency,” Dr Bhebhe says. “Early cruelty to animals, fascination with fire, persistent deceit an alarming absence of remorse. Others grow up isolated, shaped by humiliation or abuse, internalising the idea that pain equals power.”
Over time, fantasies of domination may harden into belief.
“For some,” Dr Bhebhe explains, “killing becomes a way of asserting control, erasing witnesses, silencing fear. It is not sudden. It is a gradual opportunity meeting intention, silence becoming permission.”
Advocate Bernard Muzondo explains how Zimbabwean law approaches such cases.
“We ask two questions: did the accused commit the act, and did they understand that what they were doing was wrong?”
If an accused person is found mentally incapable of appreciating their actions, the court may order psychiatric detention rather than imprisonment.
“But the bar is high,” Adv Muzondo says.
“Many serial killers know exactly that what they are doing is illegal — hence the secrecy, the concealment of bodies and the evasion of police.”
Where guilt and sanity are established, the consequences are severe.
“The law is not only punitive, it is preventative. Society must be protected,” Muzondo stresses.
Zimbabwe’s evolving stance on the death penalty and life imprisonment has reshaped sentencing, but the principle remains unchanged: serial murder attracts the gravest consequences the law can impose.
Where psychology sees pathology and the law sees culpability, faith sees spiritual rupture.
“Murder is rebellion against God’s creation,” says Pastor Tendai Marangwanda, who leads a Pentecostal ministry in Harare.
“It is not just crime; it is spiritual darkness. Deliverance may be possible, but accountability before God and the state remains.”
He speaks of healing for traumatised families and communities, and of the need to teach young men in particular how to deal with anger, rejection and hardship without violence.
Traditional leaders offer another lens.
Chief Makope (Godwin Zambara Makope) of Mazowe District in Mashonaland Central Province says repeated killing disrupts the balance between the living and the ancestors.
“When blood is shed again and again, it is not only the victim’s family that cries. The land itself is disturbed. Such acts bring misfortune upon a lineage. Rituals of cleansing are required for the murderer’s family and the community because life is sacred,” he says.
He says the law may punish the crime, but culture and faith absorb the shock.
After the headlines fade
Serial killers eventually become case numbers, academic papers and documentaries. But for families left behind, the story never ends as graves remain.
The alleged crimes in Guruve have reopened national debates about mental health, policing, belief systems and justice.
But the most terrifying truth about serial killers is not that they are monsters, it is that they are human.
