The Sunday News
Dumani Moyo and Mncedisi Buhali Sunday News Reporters
A BULAWAYO man on Friday allegedly went berserk and stabbed his wife on the face, left breast and throat with a broken beer bottle during a dispute over child maintenance.Brian Shiri of Number 919 Old Luveve stabbed his wife after having received a call from Entumbane Police Station informing him that he was going to be arrested for failing to give his wife maintenance money as the court had instructed.
Narrating her ordeal, Shiri’s wife (name withheld), who is a teacher at a local school, told Sunday News that soon after her husband received the call in the morning, he ordered their two children to go outside the house and locked the door.
“He started to question me on why I went to the police and asked them to arrest him. I told him it was because the children needed to be supported. Suddenly he picked up a Black Label beer bottle, he hit me on the head and I fell down. While I was down, he picked up one of the broken pieces of the bottle and he stabbed me on my left cheek right down to my breast and my left arm,” she said.
“I think my husband’s intention was to kill me because when I managed to get the strength to wake up, while I was about to get to the door, he almost cut my throat. There was no one to help me, until my landlord who was just from her farm came to my rescue.”
Mrs Eustina Murisa who is the victim’s landlord said when she arrived she met the woman at the gate while calling for help.
“I was shocked to see my tenant naked at the gate and with blood all over her body. When Shiri saw me, he locked himself in the house. I went to the house asking him to come out but he could not do that. I took some wire and tied the door so that he will not open until the police arrived,” said Mrs Murisa.
“By this time scores of neighbours had started to come in, some were carrying logs and some stones intending to deal with Shiri.”
Mrs Murisa further said Shiri started hurting himself on the face and bathing with his wife’s blood to cover up what he had just done to her.
“Shiri came out upon the arrival of the police and we noticed that he had badly injured himself all over the face and he was taken to Mpilo Central Hospital together with his wife,” she said.
Shiri’s wife said her husband was supposed to pay the child maintenance money for the two children from 2011, but he had not done so ever since.
“I think this was a deliberate plan because a few weeks ago he was pressurising my daughter to write a will because he had already written his. When I went to the house where my daughter was stabbed, the floor was full of broken glasses and there was blood all over. I think she is lucky to be alive,” said the woman’s father, who only identified himself as Mr Dube.
Shiri was later detained at Luveve Police Station.
