A 24-year-old man from Donga location in Chachacha, Shurugwi, has been sentenced to an effective 30 years in pr!son for the murd3r of his 3-month-old stepdaughter.
Midweek Watch has it that Tatenda Masunda was convicted of the heinous cr!me by Justice Munamato Mutevedzi after a full trial at the Gweru High Court, despite pleading not guilty.
The prosecution, led by Prosecutor Justin Uladi, presented compelling evidence detailing how Masunda brutally forced his stepdaughter to ingest nitric acid.
The incident occurred on November 3, 2022, around 5 AM, when the child’s mother left Masunda in charge while she went to a communal borehole to do laundry.
During the mother’s absence, prosecutors revealed, Masunda administered the acid orally to the infant.
He then took the crying child to the borehole where her mother was, highlighting the agonizing pain the infant was experiencing due to the acid ingestion.
Tragically, the infant died shortly after being admitted to Shurugwi Hospital. In a gripping testimony, the child’s mother, Muchaneta Zindere, recounted the horrific scene when she first saw her daughter post-attack.
“The child’s mouth was whitish, her lips were swollen while her body had turned purple. She was vomiting blood and had froth on the mouth,” Zindere stated.
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Five witnesses corroborated the gruesome details of the murd3r, including the moment they discovered a 200ml plastic container of ranger spirit at the crime scene.
Zindere described how she was overwhelmed by the smell, causing her to drop the container, which spilled the corrosive liquid on Sergeant Magamure’s legs, causing burns to his trousers.
According to the postmortem report, the cause of d3ath was determined to be the ingestion of a toxic substance, leading to pulmonary hemorrhage.
Following the incident, Masunda fled to Chegutu, but justice has now been served with his sentencing, bringing some closure to the child’s grieving family.
