HARARE – A 19-year-old maid has been charged with murder after her employer’s five-year-old son was found strangled.
Memory Zvinzveku, of Eastview in Harare, was not asked to plead during a brief court appearance before Harare magistrate Rumbidzai Mugwagwa on Thursday.
She was remanded in custody and advised to apply for bail at the High Court.
Prosecutors say Zvinzveku went to pick up the boy from Tafara 1 Primary School on January 22, after which she left the house to play with friends outside.
It is alleged that she later followed the boy who was at their neighbour’s house and took him home where she strangled him to death.
“Whilst at home, the accused person strangled the deceased who died on the spot and placed him in bed,” the court heard.
The prosecution alleges that she removed the boy’s white blood-stained T-shirt and dressed him in a clean green T-Shirt, apparently to conceal the murder.
Zvinzveku is then alleged to have gone to their neighbour identified as Fadzanai Kakunguwo, 30, and informed her that the child was not waking up.
Kakunguwo went to the house and discovered that the boy was already dead, but with scratch marks around his neck.
She also observed a blood-stained T-Shirt which had been hidden in a laundry basket.
A postmortem indicated that the boy died from strangulation.
The prosecution alleges that Zvinzveku was the only suspect because there was no-one else at home except her and the boy.
Neighbours had also seen the boy a few minutes before he was murdered, looking fit and well.
