Four years on, wealthy farmer and worker face murder trial over boy’s combine harvester death
A family’s four-year search for answers over the death of 12-year-old Suarance Moffat has reached the High Court, where commercial farmer Daniel Brink Bosman and his farm worker, Douglas Zhanewo, are facing a joint murder charge.
The case follows a fatal incident on October 21, 2022, at Omerstone Farm near Chinhoyi, in which Suarance was struck by a combine harvester while he and other boys were in a maize field. The trial has been set for October 27, bringing the matter before the High Court in the same month that the boy was killed four years ago.
For his parents, Tichaona Moffat and Tafadzwa Chineni, the court date marks the latest stage in a long and painful campaign to have the circumstances of their son’s death properly investigated. They have spent years maintaining that Suarance was not killed by a tractor, as was first reported to police, but by the front end of a combine harvester operated on the farm.
The family says Suarance and the other boys had been playing in the maize field when Bosman allegedly drove the machine towards them. They claim the farmer chased the children and that Suarance was struck as they tried to get away.
Suarance’s brother, who was among the boys in the field, allegedly saw the incident. According to the family, he watched as the harvester knocked his brother down and then saw him dangling from the front of the machine while bleeding.
The State alleges that Bosman and Zhanewo caused Suarance’s death at Omerstone Farm. They are being jointly charged with murder under case number CRB CHNCD 1167-68/26.
The charge comes after an earlier prosecution of Zhanewo on culpable homicide allegations. Bosman, who is associated with Orange Grove in Chinhoyi, reported the incident at Murereka Police Station. In that report, the family says, he claimed that Zhanewo had accidentally run over Suarance with a tractor.
Zhanewo, who works as a tractor driver at Bosman’s farm, was subsequently arrested and charged. The family, however, immediately disputed the account, saying that the injuries suffered by the boy did not match a tractor run-over incident and that Zhanewo had not been driving the machine that struck him.
Tafadzwa recalled the moment the family was told that Suarance had died.
“We were informed that our son had been run over by a tractor.‘‘We then swiftly went to the scene and, a few minutes later, my husband arrived and we took off the blanket so that we could identify the body.“My husband observed that the body of our child did not look like someone who had been run over by a tractor.“My husband asked the driver, (Douglas) Zhanewo, who admitted that he, indeed, was the one who had run over our child.”
The family says that account became the basis of what it believes was an attempt to divert attention from the combine harvester and its operator. It claims the report made to police was false and was intended to protect Bosman from responsibility for the death.
A post-mortem examination concluded that Suarance died from a deep laceration to the head that perforated his skull. He also suffered severe skull injuries and a broken leg. The findings became central to the family’s argument that the boy had not been crushed beneath a tractor.
After evidence showed that Suarance had not been run over by a tractor, the State was unable to sustain the culpable homicide charge against Zhanewo. He was cleared of the charge after the earlier case, leaving the family still demanding that the person they believe was responsible for the combine harvester’s movement be investigated. Zhanewo later described his confusion after the incident.
“What happened on that particular day, at first, I thought that I was the one who had run over the child. It was my first time to encounter such a situation,” said Zhanewo.
The family has also raised allegations of corruption, saying money and influence may have affected the handling of the case. Tichaona said the family had lost faith in the way the first investigation was conducted.
“We feel that corruption may have influenced the case.”
The family has questioned why the tractor account was pursued despite its objections and despite the post-mortem findings. It has also insisted that key questions remained unanswered, including who was operating the combine harvester, what happened in the maize field and why the incident was reported as a tractor accident.
Those questions have remained at the centre of the family’s campaign for justice. During the years that followed Suarance’s death, his parents repeatedly called for the case to be reopened and for Bosman to answer questions about the events on the farm.
Bosman has rejected the accusations against him and said he did not want his name drawn into the matter.
“The accusations against me are fabricated. They can investigate me if they want to. The police must also investigate the family of the child who died,” said Bosman.
The murder indictment now places both Bosman and Zhanewo before the High Court. It also brings together the two competing accounts that have shaped the case since the day Suarance died: the original claim that a tractor accident took place, and the family’s insistence that the boy was struck during an alleged chase by a combine harvester.
The dangers of moving agricultural machinery are well known, particularly during harvesting, when large machines operate across open fields and visibility can be limited by crops, dust and the size of the equipment. Combine harvesters are designed to move through dense crops and carry cutting and feeding mechanisms at the front, making any person in their path vulnerable to catastrophic injury. In Suarance’s case, the machine was operating in a field where children were allegedly present, a detail that the family says should have been central to the investigation from the beginning.
For Tafadzwa, the loss has remained immediate despite the passage of time. She described her son as disciplined and said the family wanted the truth established for his memory and for the peace of those left behind.
“He was a disciplined child and we believe that the truth must prevail for the sake of our son’s memory and the family’s peace,” said Tafadzwa.
The family says it has endured repeated court appearances, the collapse of the first charge and years of uncertainty since the tragedy. It has also had to revisit the details of Suarance’s final moments while seeking an explanation for the injuries recorded after his death.
Now, with the matter scheduled for trial, the family’s long-running demands have moved to the country’s highest court. The proceedings are expected to examine the events at Omerstone Farm, the statements made after Suarance was killed, the medical evidence and the roles allegedly played by Bosman and Zhanewo.
For four years, Suarance’s parents have said that justice was delayed while their son’s death was treated as a tractor accident. The High Court proceedings will now determine the course of a case that has left the family asking the same question since October 2022: how did a 12-year-old boy come to be fatally struck by a combine harvester in a maize field, and why was the incident first reported as something else?
The answer, they say, is essential not only to the case but to the memory of the child they lost.