HARARE – A street dealer who shot his girlfriend dead after failing to handle rejection has been found dead following an apparent suicide, police said on Saturday.
Tafadzwa Russell Murengwa, 29, was found dead in his vehicle in the Gletwin area of Shawasha Hills in Harare after he shot his ex-girlfriend, Samantha Ruvimbo Dzapata, on Friday.
Police said Murengwa took his life by drinking an insecticide, thought to be Dichlorvos 100 EC.
National police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said: “Police recovered the Toyota Aqua vehicle, a 0.38 Webley Revolver loaded with four spent cartridges and one live round at the scene.
“The late Samatha Dzapata’s mobile phone was recovered at Zindoga Shopping Centre, Waterfalls, where the suspect had left it with a certain man.”
Dzapata was shot at around 9AM on Friday following a heated argument with Murengwa along Simon Mazorodze Road.
The slain woman’s friends have been sharing messages she sent them detailing systematic physical and emotional abuse by Murengwa, who worked out of the Ximex Mall.
The messages included a picture of her with blood gushing from a wound over her right eye from a blow she said was inflicted by Murengwa with a jack.
Dzapata, a 28-year-old NGO worker, had recently called time on the relationship but an obsessed Murengwa continued to pursue her.
