Gweru worker arrested after employer’s remains were burned and scattered
A 22-year-old general worker has been arrested in connection with the killing of his employer at a plot in Woodend, Gweru, where investigators say the woman’s body was burned for two days before her remains were scattered in a field.
Takunda Kazembe was arrested after the death of Fungai Mpofu, 53, on 28 October. Police say the attack followed a reprimand over his work performance. Their account is that Kazembe struck Mpofu repeatedly with a metal container until she lost consciousness, covered her with a tent and set her body alight after realising she had died.
The fire reportedly burned for two days. Police say Kazembe then scattered the remains in a field and took about 1.5 tonnes of maize and two mobile phones belonging to Mpofu. He is said to have sold the maize before fleeing to his rural home, where he was arrested. The reported sequence places the alleged killing, disposal of the remains and theft at the same rural property where he worked.
The arrest was announced on 13 November, more than two weeks after the date of the killing. The account released by police describes a case that began with an employer reprimanding a worker and ended with investigators tracing a suspect who had left the area. The details of the alleged confrontation, the burning and the stolen property have been attributed to the police account.
The case is among several recent murder proceedings in Zimbabwe that have drawn attention because of the circumstances of the deaths and the stages reached in the justice system. In some, suspects have been arrested while investigations continue. In others, defendants have been convicted and sentenced after trial. The distinction is central to an accurate account of what has happened in each case.
In Gwanda, police arrested Nqobani Ncube in October in connection with a series of reported rape and murder cases across Gwanda and surrounding areas. He was remanded in custody after appearing in court. Police have linked him to murder cases reported in Esigodini, Gwanda and Collen Bawn, as well as a range of reported offences that include rape, robbery, mugging and unlawful entry.
Police said one of the murder investigations concerned an incident in Spirtskop, Gwanda, in which the victim was allegedly killed with a spear. Ncube was also wanted in connection with separate murder cases in Collen Bawn and Esigodini. Investigators have asked people who may have been victimised to come forward.
The arrest followed reports that Ncube allegedly took victims to a secluded mountain hideout. One woman told reporters that she had been abducted at knifepoint, sexually assaulted and held at a shack. She said she escaped after using a lighter to burn cables that had been used to tie her. Her account was among the information reported as investigators examined other possible offences linked to the suspect.
The police account also described a remote setting in the Gwanda Mountains. Such details have helped explain the course of the investigation, but the reported cases remain at different stages. Ncube’s arrest and court appearance are confirmed developments; the individual offences connected to him are matters under investigation and have not been described here as convictions.
A case with a different outcome reached the High Court in Bulawayo earlier this year. Quinton Sibanda, 18, and Kamuelo Moyo, 20, were sentenced to life imprisonment on 3 June for the murder of a woman they attacked as she walked to a church service in Beitbridge. The two men, from Dombolidenje Village, had been arrested on 9 May 2025 and later tried in court.
The court heard that the pair ambushed the woman, took her mobile phone and raped her. They then strangled and repeatedly stabbed her with an Okapi knife. After the attack, they dragged her body about 15 metres from the footpath and concealed it before leaving. The Bulawayo High Court convicted both men of murder and imposed life sentences.
The case had been before the courts for more than a year between the arrests and sentencing. Its reported facts include the victim’s route to a church service and the attempt to hide her body near the footpath. The sentences followed convictions, unlike the Gweru and Gwanda cases, where the men named in the reports had been arrested and faced investigations or charges.
In another concluded case, the High Court in Chinhoyi sentenced Ellias Tasiyana to 25 years in prison for killing his wife at their home in Mhondoro-Ngezi. The fatal attack took place in July 2025 at Village 14, Bumbe, and the sentence was reported in May 2026. The court found that Tasiyana had repeatedly struck his wife on the head and body with a spade.
Tasiyana told the court that he had found another man in bed with his wife and that she was accidentally struck during a fight with the supposed intruder. The court rejected that account and convicted him of murder with actual intention. Evidence from his mother formed part of the case: she said she heard screams, went to the couple’s room and found the door locked. When it was opened, she saw the woman’s body and a pool of blood. The court also heard that no other man was seen leaving the room.
After the killing, Tasiyana swallowed poison and was taken to hospital. He later escaped while under police guard and was rearrested. The court heard that the couple’s three-year-old child was present in the household and was left without a mother. The sentencing report also described a history of earlier abuse and police and hospital records relating to the woman.
Taken together, the cases span an arrest announced in November, an October arrest in Gwanda and two High Court outcomes reached earlier in the year. The Gweru investigation concerns the death of an employer and the alleged burning and scattering of her remains. The Gwanda inquiry covers multiple reported offences and is still at the investigation stage. The Beitbridge and Mhondoro-Ngezi cases have resulted in murder convictions and prison sentences.
The details differ sharply, but the cases share the same immediate human consequence: women were killed, leaving families and communities to deal with bereavement and with the consequences of violence. In the Gweru case, Mpofu’s family is also facing the loss of a woman whose death was followed by the reported destruction and dispersal of her remains. In Mhondoro-Ngezi, the court heard that a young child was left motherless.
Police have urged anyone with information or who believes they may have been victimised in the Gwanda cases to contact investigators. In Gweru, the arrest marks a key step in the police inquiry into Mpofu’s death and the movements of the stolen property. The two court cases, by contrast, have proceeded through trial to sentencing, with life imprisonment imposed in the Beitbridge murder and a 25-year term in the Mhondoro-Ngezi case.
