Source: 4 life sentences for Chivhu killer mom –Newsday Zimbabwe
A CHIVHU woman, Emelda Marizani, who beheaded her four children in 2020 following a brawl with her husband, has been sentenced to four life sentences.
Marizani was convicted by High Court judge Justice Munamato Mutevedzi yesterday.
“The murder was committed in aggravated circumstances. It was a mass murder whereby the accused killed the deceased simultaneously over a relative period of time without cooling off and on an enclosed geographical location,” the judge said.
“She also used multiple fatal methods to kill her victims after she admitted to lacing four cups with poison and instructing her children to drink it. She chose two extreme modus operandi used by murderers.”
Marizani had admitted to killing all her four children, but pleaded insanity.
However, the judge said her actions showed evil intent.
“Cut throat method was savage and brutal… Accused is a highly dangerous criminal. The court will show little to no mercy to a mother who butchers her own children. She does not deserve a second chance, she also does not deserve to go back to society,” Justice Mutevedzi ruled, saying it was traumatising to imagine what the deceased girls went through on that day.
The court concluded that Marazani had long planned to kill her children after updating their funeral policy.
“She did not explain why she was keeping rat poison in the car. The only inference we can draw is that she had long planned to kill her children,” the judge added.
On the fateful day, she laced her children’s juice drinks with rat poison, put them to bed after they drank the poisoned drinks, then slit their throats while they slept and later set her family house on fire.