The cold murder cases of Guruve

The cellular phone. 

There are myriad things you can do with it. You can use it or abuse it. You can call your parents in the rural area and inquire about their health and the weather and also get regular updates about life in the place where you grew up. Using the cell phone, you can call your significant other and tell them how much you love them and how much of a blessing they have been when they came into your life at the time they did.

You can keep mementos of the important events and important people in your life in that small gadget that fits snugly into your palm and your pocket… in fact, the cellular phone has become so important to people’s lives that there are a great lot of us who cannot do with it.

Besides, you apparently can solve a murder case using a cellular phone too. 

Oh yes; you can. You can ask the alert police officers at Centenary Police Station, who, while investigating a case of unlawful entry and theft on the 9^th of August, stumbled upon information that one Richard Pairamanzi was harbouring their number one suspect, whose name was Garikayi Richard John. Pairamanzi led the investigating team, which comprised Constables Luckson Maraire, Elson Kwirirai, Tafadzwa Masvovere and Courage Mutusva, to John, who was then also apprehended and the two were immediately searched. The police recovered two cellular phones in the process – from Pairamanzi they recovered an Apple Iphone 4S and from John they recovered a Nokia 1600. 

The two man could not satisfactorily account for their communication gadgetry, with Pairamanzi just mumbling that the Iphone that was found on his person actually belonged to John, and the latter acknowledging that fact; which prompted the police officers to take them down to the station for the further questioning. Unfortunately, the interrogation could not prove a prima facie case against the duo, and attempts to take them to court were hampered by the fact that court was not sitting on the supposed day. So they had to be released from custody after two days, with the police intending to proceed with the case by way of summons. 

But the Centenary cops held on to the cell phones.

“Call it a sixth sense, alertness on the part of the police; or whatever you may want, but there was something really fishy about Pairamanzi and John – given their general appearance and their supposed living conditions – owning a that kind of a smart phone,” said Sergeant Boniface Watambwa, a Guruve Police Intelligence Officer who was to inherit the case of the cell phone later. “The Iphone looked, to put it simply, too smart for them.

“At the time of its recovery, the phone’s battery was dead and the police could not find a charger in time. Besides, there was no electricity. By the time they ran around and finally found one, and turned the phone on to uncover what was on it, the two suspects were safely out of the police’s grasp.”

When the police discovered the explosive contents of the Iphone, they must have torn a lot of hairs in frustrated disgust for letting Pairamanzi and John go; for they discovered to their mortification, that almost all the contacts in the phone were of white people; what business did John have that exclusively needed white contacts? But that was not what chilled the police officers’ blood when they made the discovery. It was after the initial shock had worn off that the real horror did settle in. They called one of the contacts in the phone and he confirmed their worst fears – the phone belonged to Catherine May Francis, a 35-year-old white woman who lived with her farmer parents, Malcom Stuart Fancis and Annette May Francis, at their Muzhanje Farm in Guruve. They were good people, who had warm relations with their neighbours, participated in local events and often gave a helping hand when needed. So it was good that the police may have recovered a phone lost by one of the Francises. 

Except that the Iphone had been lost during a robbery attack which left Catherine May Francis dead. Not Catherine alone, but her father Malcom too.

Their bodies had been discovered dumped and unconscious a few metres from the road where the two took their evening walks every day. That was on the 10^th of May, 2014. It was Annette who had organised a search party after she was driven to panic by one of their two dogs, Casey, which sneaked alone into the home, looking scared and shaken, with its tail tucked between its legs. The dog had never returned alone after going for a walk before. In panic, Annette and initially driven down the road alone to look for her husband and daughter, but had to return and look for reinforcements, which included Andrew Gordon Francis, Malcom’s brother who lived nearby. It was Andrew who spotted the two, a few metres apart; they were barely breathing, had deep cuts on their heads and faces and had their hands tied with a wire. Stuart’s cell phone – an Iphone 4S could not be found. Catherine had had her running shoes, jeans and underwear removed, and when she was found, only the pair of jeans and panties were found by her side. Her phone too, and her shoes, had vanished.

Four days after her ordeal, Catherine died at a private hospital in Harare. Post mortem results confirmed that she had suffered brain damage and haemorrhage due to assault, and that she had been raped. He father died five days later.

The case was under investigation at Guruve Police Station and when the Centenary cops discovered the explosive evidence on the Iphone, the immediately sent it over to Sgt Watambwa.

“We were making very little headway into our investigations, because the perpetrators had left no trace and no witnesses to the murder,” narrated Sgt Watambwa. “So when we got this invaluable clue, we did not waste time. Immediately, we organised a team to comb the homestead where John – whom we knew as Jimu them – was known to be living. There was a team from here in Guruve, a team from Centenary and another from CID Mvurwi detectives. Jimu was known to be living at the home of his maternal relatives, and when we got there, he was there alright.

“But we were a tiny tad too late; we arrived at Chipiri Farm at around 0300hours in the morning, but before we could do anything, Jimu surprised us and bolted and fled for safety, while in a state of dishabille. We gave a very spirited chase, but the guy is very fit and knows how to use his feet well. He soon disappeared in the darkness.

“But as he was fleeing, he dropped something on the ground, which he found no time to pick up. And when we got to it, we understood why he did not want us to see it upon searching his house.”

It was a pocket diary. In it, John and written graphic blue prints about how they were going to attack the good folk of Muzhanje Farm and who was going to do what in that plan of attack. It was the first time that the police realised that John was not working alone, but with two other men, one of whom was only referred to by the alias, Muzeya in the diary.

But that was not all.

“We discovered that this was not the first time Jimu and his accomplices had committed a crime of this horrendous magnitude to the white farmers surrounding Centenary, Mvurwi and Guruve. The robbery and savagery spree had actually started way back, on Workers’ Day, 2010, when the trio pounced on Wendy Ann De la Fargue and her husband at their Heronden Farm in Centenary. They attacked the couple just as they were retiring to bed and left the husband for dead before dragging Mrs De la Fargue to the safe where she was to open it under duress and reveal $15,000 stashed in it. The boys helped themselves to the cash and also ransacked the houses, making off with several kitchen utensils, pillows, bed sheets and blankets.”

Mrs De la Fargue survived to narrate her ordeal to the police, but sadly, her husband didn’t. Neither did Collin Robin Zietsman of Samapiri Farm who was allegedly killed before he could even fully get out of his slumber by the robbers who sneaked into his farm on the second day of September in 2011, while Mr Zietsman and his wife Phillipa were out, and fled with his firearm, clothes and several other household items and also left Phillipa, dazed by numerous blows to the head. And Robert Glending Ervine, who was ambushed outside his house and struck unconscious on Octover 2, 2011. He stayed in hospital for six months before succumbing to effects of the attack on the 10^th of April, 2012. On the day Mr Glending was attacked, John and his co-perpetrators also tied his wife, Barbara Ann’s hands and ordered her to stay supine on the ground as the trio turned her house upside down, or risk being shot. They stole another revolver from the place, $5,000 and also various clothing and household items.

Added Sgt Hellen Magede of Guruve CID, who was part of the wide investigations that had a massive collective efforts of police officers from Guruve, Mvurwi and Centenary; “They also tried to rob and murder Robert Bernard Masterson of Nteto Farm in Guruve. They whacked him twice in the head with a hoe as he was returning from his barns, but he got hold of the weapon and even managed to remove a mask off his attacker’s face. It was only then that the attackers fled the scene.”

Most of the information was in the diary that John dropped, and the police got down to serious work. They diary mentioned that Muzeya lived in Raffingora in the neighbouring Mashonaland West Province, and one of the investigators called his contacts in the area; he was in luck – his informer knew about Muzeya, but Muzeya was not his real name.

“We learned that Muzeya’s real name was Kiribon Jirimadenga, and that in Raffingora, Jirimadenga was a God-fearing family man who earned his living by shuttling between Zimbabwe and Mozambique, buying and selling various second hand staff,” said Sgt Watambwa. “The weekly church services were actually being conducted at his homestead.

“It was curious though, that the days that Jirimadenga left home for his Mozambique trips were the same days that these robberies and murders were committed. He tried to cover his tracks well – he would actually travel to the border and have his passport stamped to make it look like he was out of the country when the heinous crimes were committed. Nice try, but we did not buy it. On the 26^th of August last year, we found him at the homestead of his in-laws in Raffingora, at a farm called Conrise and we took him to his actual home, where we recovered many of the things that had been reported stolen by our complainants. Some of the things had already been sold to customers, who also bought Jirimadenga’s dummy that the clothes had been brought in bales from Mozambique for resale in Zimbabwe. That explained why they targeted white farm owners.”

Jirimadenga then led the investigators to the third suspect, Doesmatter Vhore, who was picked the very next day. It was Vhore who had kept the gun that was robbed at the home of Mr and Mrs Ervine, and he retrieved the weapon from the ground where he had buried it and surrendered it to the police.

Jirimadenga and Vhore were tried for their counts of robbery and attempted murder at the Bindura Magistrate’s Courts, with the courts finding them guilty of all the counts and returning a verdict of 46 and 43-year sentences behind bars respectively. They are yet to answer for the murders of five people during those robberies.

“Now, there was the question of where we could find this elusive Jimu character,” Sgt Watambwa said. “It looked like there was some supernatural force that alerted him that the police were in the area looking for him, and he would disappear. He shuttled between Centenary and Guruve for a long time, depending on where the heat was at the time. 

“There were reported sightings of him in Mvurwi, where he was said to be impersonating the police and fleecing commercial sex workers he allegedly caught soliciting for clients. But the information was not concrete enough to warrant us organising another search party. We did not want to scare him away.

“But one day it happened. Police in Mvurwi got a tip in the afternoon that the person they were looking for was spotted in Mvurwi, and the police rushed to the scene with dogs in tow. Unfortunately, the police officers who went in search of the suspect did not have a good description of him, and they returned to the charge office empty-handed.”

But John had seen them alright. Later he would tell the police that he stood behind the corner of one house and watched in anger as a police officer with a dog in tow scoured the streets in search of him. He would tell the police that the police officer was also in the company of another man who was in civilian clothing, and it was this man that made John’s blood boil – because he was sure that it was the man in civilian attire who had sold him out to the police. Alas, little did he know that he was threatening one of Mvurwi’s finest.

“So, it was to the shock and mortification of one of our detectives at Mvurwi CID, when a man came to him one day and threatened to deal with him for trying to get him arrested. The detective’s mind was piqued – he had arrested many people in his life. So who was this person who had the gall to threaten unspecified action on a police officer?

“The following morning, the detective saw the man who had threatened him yesterday brushing his teeth outside house number 996 in the Majahwi location, and the recognition kicked in quickly this time. Quietly, he called for reinforcements while keeping an alert eye on Jimu, who – when he was finally caught – did not know what had hit him.”

It was the arrest of John which finally helped the police piece together the puzzle that had them scratching their heads over an unprecedentedly violent robbery spree that spanned four years – the trio of John, Jirimadenga and Vhore told the police how they waylaid upon Catherine and her father, savagely attacked them and robbed Stuart of his phone, money amounting to almost $300 and his trainers before they dragged them into the grass where John had his way with Catherine before leaving the two to die afterwards. They showed the police how they climbed into Mr and Mrs Zietsman’s bedroom on the first floor of their and clobbered the man of the house until he lost his life. 

“These men had caused untold dread and grief among the farming community in Guruve. They brought the country into disrepute after their individual actions that were driven by savage greed were viewed by some members of the community as politically motivated attacks on the remaining white farmers in the country.

“They must stand in the dock and answer for their callous actions,” said Sgt Watambwa.

They did. When the trio was brought to the dock to answer for their crimes, High Judge, Justice Tawanda Chitapi, returned with a guilty verdict in June 2018, and sentenced them to death for each of the four cold bloodedcblooded murders they committed.

But with Zimbabwe's new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, not being a fan of the hangman's noose, having escaped one himself when he was still a teenager in colonial Zimbabwe, the trio are likely to have their sentences commuted to life behind bars.