The Sunday News
“EVERYONE arise! The court is now in session!” the burly police officer bawled from the microphone, which was near the witness stand. A pall of silence descended on the public gallery as the judge sauntered into the packed courtroom. He eased his bulky frame into a chair, shuffled through the pile of papers on his desk and barked:”Prisoner Number Z124!”
Everyone’s eyes were glued to the entrance of the courtroom as the prisoner, who was in leg irons, tumbled into the courtroom, flanked by two stern-faced prison officers. As the prisoner waddled towards the dock, her knees suddenly buckled and she toppled to the floor. The prison officers hauled her back to her feet and pushed her roughly towards the dock. Someone screamed “witch” from the public gallery. The lone voice was followed by others, all screaming their hatred of the prisoner. A short while later, the trial began.
“The case against you, Mrs Chitema is that on 2 February 2009 you murdered your own child near Luveve Post Office. After murdering her, you removed her genitals, eyes, heart and brain-matter and then buried her in a shallow grave. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?” “Not guilty, Your Worship. I was instructed to kill the child by an ‘inyanga’. It was dark and I did not realise that the child was my own daughter,” the prisoner retorted.
The judge scribbled something down and continued. “The fact that an ‘inyanga’ instructed you to kill the child does not absolve you, Mrs Chitema. You cold-bloodedly murdered an innocent child. Do not expect any mercy from this court.” There was a brief pause and then he continued: “Women are generally kind, tender and affectionate beings. My mind is therefore in a quandary as regards to how you, a mother, permitted wickedness of this magnitude to permeate your soul to the extent of brutally terminating the life of your own child, Mrs Chitema.
However, before sentence is pronounced, I want you to tell this court the real circumstances surrounding the commission of this gruesome crime. If there are any extenuating circumstances, naturally these will be considered in reaching a verdict.”
Patiently, her voice sometimes breaking into hysterical sobs, Mrs Chitema began to narrate her story, which began in 2008 after the harmonised elections. After being voted into office as a Member of Parliament, Mrs Chitema had set her sights on a Cabinet post in the new Inclusive Government. To realise her dream, she had enlisted the help of Gogo Mangoi, a cunning inyanga who owned a plot on the outskirts of the City of Kings.
The grapevine had it that when Gogo Mangoi was five-years-old, she was seized by a mermaid as she was fetching water from a dam. Everyone presumed that she had drowned, but her body could not be found. The mermaid released her two years later and she became an inyanga whose fame and popularity knew no bounds.
After Mrs Chitema had paid the astronomic consultation fees, the inyanga fished her bones out of a soiled python skin pouch hanging around her neck. She threw the bones onto the floor and stared at them for a moment. Suddenly, she twisted her body feverishly from side to side with her eyes rolled upwards in their sockets so that only the whites were exposed.
A yelping laugh gushed out from her throat and then she produced a snuff container made from the horn of a goat. She shoved some snuff into her flared nostrils and sneezed several times. Then she blew her nose and spattered dark mucus on her client’s face. Mrs Chitema wrinkled her nose in distaste and was about to wipe away the mucus with the back of her hand. The inyanga grabbed her hand in a vice-like grip and shrieked: “Do not remove the mucus or the magic concoction that I will prepare for you will lose its potency. However, I must warn you that acquiring the ingredients of this concoction will not be easy as it involves spilling human blood.”
The inyanga produced a wicked-looking knife and handed it to her client. Dropping her voice to a murmur, she said: “You will use this knife to kill a child and remove her eyes, genitals, heart and brain matter. Bring these organs to me and I will prepare the magic concoction for you.” Mrs Chitema shut her eyes tightly, vainly trying to fight off the fear and panic that threatened to overwhelm her.
Although the thought of committing murder filled her heart with unbridled trepidation, she convinced herself that it was the only way of realising her dream. This effectively silenced the voice of reason that tried in vain to dissuade her from accepting the inyanga’s magic concoction.
The time was 9.30 pm when Mrs Chitema left the inyanga’s residence. She boarded a commuter omnibus, which dropped her at Chigumira Shopping Complex in Luveve. The skies above were dark with heavy, drifting clouds and it was drizzling. There was no electricity and the whole suburb was immersed in darkness. As she plodded past Luveve Post Office, the sky suddenly flamed with one enormously long and sustained flash of lightning, which illuminated the darkness with a brilliance that surpassed daylight. In the prolonged light she saw a girl with a bunch of vegetables in her hand, crouching behind a clump of bushes to answer the call of nature. The light was gone as quickly as it had come and the drizzle suddenly intensified into a downpour.
With the knife tightly gripped in her hand, she crept towards the child with the stealth of a lioness stalking prey and plunged the knife into her back, killing her instantly. She carried the body to a bushy area where she mutilated it. She wrapped the child’s organs in an old newspaper and then buried the body in a shallow grave. As she walked briskly towards her house, she ran into two police detectives who were on patrol in the area. The detectives searched her and found the human organs.
They handcuffed her and hauled her to Luveve Police Camp. The following morning she led the detectives to the spot where she had buried the child. The detectives ordered her to exhume the body. Peering at the horribly disfigured body, Mrs Chitema uttered a frightened gasp and slumped to the ground in a faint when she realised that the dead child was her own daughter.
When she finished narrating her story, an eerie silence which seemed to extend into infinity, filled the entire courtroom. The judge leaned back in his chair, his face grim with thought. Finally he said: “I have been a High Court judge for more than a decade now and I have presided over countless cases involving patricide, sororicide, fratricide and infanticide. To be honest, I have never encountered anything as blood-chilling and bizarre as this before. The scope of ruthlessness and brutality that was exhibited in the commission of this murder, not only chills the blood, but also gives me ample evidence that the accused is mentally incapacitated and needs urgent psychiatric attention.
“In the light of this, I am deferring the passing of sentence to another date to allow the accused to be examined by a psychiatrist. The court session is now over.” With these words, the judge stood up and ambled out of the courtroom.
