Chivhu mom gets four life sentences for killing her four children

HARARE – Emelda Marizani, the Chivhu woman who callously slit the throats of her four children in a shock murder orgy 2020, was on Friday sentenced to four life sentences for the crimes.

Marizani was convicted on all four counts of murder which she committed allegedly to spite her cheating husband.

It was her defence that she was mentally unstable when she committed the heinous crimes.

But court ruled that evidence proved she planned to kill her children long before the actual incidents.

Court said Marizani was selfish she saved her own life while ending those of her innocent children who had nothing to do with differences between herself and her husband Lameck Brande.

In sentencing Marizani, High Court judge, Munamato Mutevedzi said she deserves four life sentences; one for each child.

The judge said the murders were committed in aggravated circumstances.

Mutevedzi said Marizani committed the crimes in mass murder style and simultaneously over a relative period of time without exercising any restraint and on an enclosed geographical location.

Mutevedzi said she also chose two extreme modus operandi to kill her children; that of forcing them to take poison and also cutting their throats.

“The 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.

“She is therefore sentenced to life imprisonment,” ruled the judge.

The mother of five reached breaking point after she confronted her husband’s girlfriend, one Chelsea Bepete who told her that she was now pregnant from a relationship with Marizani’s husband.

Bepete is also alleged to have told Marizani that the latter was no longer loved because she was failing to deliver a son as per her husband’s wishes.

Earlier on the fateful day, Marizani had fought with her husband over his love relationship with Bepete.

She then went home where she put poison in her daughters’ juice before she cut off their heads and set the house on fire.

Marizani then took funeral policy papers for her children and surrendered herself at the police station.

She had also gulped some rat poison and was rushed to hospital where the lethal substance was successfully neutralised.

Marizani gave birth to her fifth child while in jail.

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