Tuesday January 3, 2023 starts like any other day for the Mukuvatsine family of Nyarugwe Village in Chief Mutoko’s domain of Mashonaland East Province, but by the time the sun totters above the hill to the east of the homestead — an elderly couple lies in pools of blood — brutally murdered by its 45-year-old son.
It is a story fit for the movies — an epic of gory proportions in which both filial duty and love are fed to mongrels known to frequent the darkest corners of human existence.
To the Mukuvatsine family, Nyarugwe community and beyond, such a ghastly departure of reason is beyond comprehension. On reliving the horror of this unfortunate Tuesday mid-morning, they all zero in on one word; shock.
At the crack of dawn, The Herald gathers this Friday (yesterday), some family members get together to discuss a crucial matter brought by their daughter-in-law.
Married to the one born second in the family, Clemence, the woman has brought the couple’s two children to their grandparents for upkeep informing them that she wanted out since her marriage was on shaky ground.
She can no longer stay with her husband because he has not paid lobola for her, the gathering hears.
Clemence’s mother then informed the first-born in the family, Anymore (Clemence’s sister), who stays in a neighbouring village, to come and assist in resolving the issue.
It is this state of affairs that leads to “murder most foul” as William Shakespeare would put it, for before noon, Clemence would ruthlessly kill his 72-year father, Stephen Mukuvatsine, and 67-year-old mother, Elizabeth Kamhoti.
He would also attack other community members, including his sister, before being overpowered and arrested.
According to the family, the elderly parents, dead by the hand of one of their 10 children, will be buried at their homestead in Nyarugwe Village today.
This homestead is located about 20km east of Mutoko centre, and is built near a community borehole. A big house with several rooms, a thatched kitchen and another one-roomed dwelling to the west, makes up this stately home.
Before one enters the yard from the west, he or she has to pass through a groundnut field to the right of which are huge boulders, and a big tree generously offering shade to whoever yearns to shield themselves from the scotching Mutoko heat. To the east lies a bushy hill with deep green vegetation, typical of the rainy season.
There are also some mango trees, a fowl run, kraal and barn.
Unable to stomach the reality of being left in the cold by his wife, Clemence is said to have demanded that Anymore return a cow belonging to the family she had borrowed earlier. His sister consented, but advised him to consult every family member before she could release it.
Clemence could have none of it, saying he wanted the beast immediately. Having hit a deadlock, family members decided to shelve the matter awhile, with plans to resume later.
In the interim period, tragedy visited.
Miffed by it all, Clemence allegedly attacked his sister, and later killed his father and mother in cold blood as they tried to stop him from further assaulting his sibling.
Opening up to The Herald, family and community members express shock at the tragedy that befell them.
Engulfed in the sombreness of this latest visit by the Grim Reaper to harvest among their own in such a heartless manner, scores of mourners gather at the homestead to commiserate with the family.
Some, mostly women, are indoors, while others, largely men, are outside.
The tense atmosphere around here is conspicuous.
“My brother, we are hurting as a family,” says Anymore, the firstborn child to the deceased, vainly trying to hide tears streaming down her cheeks.
“This is something we will never forget, that such a scary incident could happen to us, and that our parents were killed in such a manner. This is something which we never thought would happen in this era.”
She goes on to agonisingly narrate the events of the fateful day.
She says after Clemence’s wife brought the couple’s children to live with their grandparents, other family members objected.
Left with no other option, the daughter-in-law mulled taking her husband to court to claim maintenance for the children, an idea which was supported by Anymore.
“I, however, informed her that even if he is compelled to pay for the upkeep of the children, the family will be obliged to pay because he is not gainfully employed,” Anymore says.
It is at this point that all hell broke loose.
“This did not go well with my brother who became furious that I had supported the idea. He did not say anything at that moment. He left us and moved a short distance from where we were seated. He lay prostrate on the ground,” she says.
A while later, his children were sent to invite him to breakfast, but he refused. Anymore decided to go and fetch him.
“The moment I arrived where he was lying down, he lifted his face. He was visibly livid. He said to me, ‘get away from here, ndiwe muroyi wangu iwe, nhasi ndoda kukuuraya. Pano pari kutofiwa’ (you are the one who has bewitched me, today I am going to kill you. There will be death here). He picked some huge stones and continued threatening me,” narrated Anymore.
Sensing danger, she decided to retreat, but she was too late as one of the flying stones hit the back of her head. Her irate brother hailed another stone at her which caught her on the left shoulder.
Anymore says it was at this moment that their father intervened in an attempt to stop Clemence from further assaulting her.
Wielding a wooden hoe handle, the old man admonished his son to stop attacking his sister.
“My father tried to hit him, but Clemence snatched the handle from him and struck him twice on the head, and he fell down. Seeing that his grandfather was down, my brother’s son, Prince, picked up a stone and hit his father on the back. He then turned his back and started chasing after his son, but could not catch up with him,” she says.
Anymore says when his brother came back where their father wasand bleeding profusely, he further assaulted him using the same hoe handle. By then she had rushed back into the house to seek refuge from her mother and daughter.
“He came straight to the house and smashed the door open. My mother tried to reprimand him, but he told her that he wanted to kill everyone, including her. He instantly hit my mother with the same handle on the head once, and she fell down. He continued hitting her until she was unconscious,” the teary Anymore explains.
Done with their mother, Clemence turned on his sister, who was hiding in their parents’ bedroom. At that moment, alerted by the noise, one resident came to the rescue and struck the apparently deranged brother with a stone. Leaving behind his initial target, he turned on the newcomer and chased him.
“That is how I escaped and survived. I then went to hide in the nearby mountain,” the distraught sister says.
She says she is now living in fear of her brother, who threatened to come back to kill her once released. She intimates that her brother has always been violent, and abused drugs and other substances, particularly mbanje.
Notified by his wife and children, other residents from the village tried to restrain him, but they initially failed as he violently pelted them with stones. However, they eventually subdued him leading to his arrest.
“When other community members came, they noticed that my father and mother were dead. Some of them were baying for Clemence’s blood. That is the moment I came down from the mountain,” Anymore says.
An ambulance crew arrived swiftly but too late for the call.
Clemence’s brother, Stanley, who stays in Harare, says it is beyond imagination that his brother could kill their parents.
“I fainted when word reached me that my parents were dead. I was in Harare where I work, and by that time I was at a canteen looking for food. I just collapsed. I woke up later, and was assisted by some friends and my uncle to get home,” he says.
Stanley says it hurts him to have lost his parents in such a brutal manner, at the hands of their son.
“We used to read and hear about such incidents, but it never occurred to us that one day we would experience it firsthand as a family,” says Stanley.
Clemence’s firstborn, Prince, has no kind words for his father, blaming him for neglecting parental obligation, and later on killing his grandparents, whom he considers his “real parents”.
“I was left at a tender age by my mother in the care of my grandparents. They have cared for me since I was a few months old. Now I am an adult. They were like my real parents,” he says.
“I tried unsuccessfully to help them and save their lives from my father, but unfortunately they died. I do not know what had gotten into his mind, but from the time they were discussing, I could see that my father was angry, depressed and quiet.”
A neighbour, Panganai Mabhande, who also rushed to the scene after he heard the noise, said the deceased were good people and related well with others.
“I rushed here when I heard the commotion. I found Baba laying in a pool of blood, unconscious. Clemence was chasing a neighbour who had hit him with a stone. After failing to catch up with him, he came back here and hit Baba with the hoe handle several times. More members of the community came, and he retreated to his room. We locked him inside,” he says.
Mabhande says Clemence threatened to hang himself using a curtain, but they promptly wrested it from him. He went on to turn the room upside down looking for any poisonous substance he could use to take his life, but he found none. He even tore his pair of trousers to make a rope to no avail.
“Immediately an ambulance and the police arrived. Baba and Amai were declared dead. The police were armed and they arrested him. It is said they also found him with mbanje in his room.
“This is strange. Yes, Clemence was a violent man, and always fought with people at our local business centre, especially when drunk, but we never imagined that he would murder his parents,” Mabhande says. – The Herald
