Ritual beliefs blamed for grisly killing

A ZIMBABWEAN woman killed a neighbour who accused her of stealing goats, then chopped her up and roasted her liver, police said yesterday, as they warned of a huge surge in crime rates.

The 60-year-old woman is alleged to have struck her victim on the head with a stone and then chopped her body up using a garden hoe.

Relatives of Marceline Thembani, 57, became worried when she did not return to her house in eastern Chipinge and sent out members of the Neighbourhood Watch to look for her, according to local press reports.

Villagers found a bloodstained hoe, bits of flesh and the roasted liver in a cooking pot at Selina Mutsembeyi’s homestead on Tuesday, said Chief Superintendent Ndofandaedza Jaboon.

An off-duty police officer arrested Mutsembeyi at a nearby shopping centre and demanded to search the bag she was carrying. In it, he found a human thigh. She is believed to have eaten her victim’s liver in accordance with local ritual beliefs. There is no suggestion yet that she was mentally unbalanced.

Police say rates of violent crime have surged in the first two weeks of September. A white ex-farmer was shot dead on Tuesday when he tried to rescue a neighbour who had been abducted from a protected housing estate in Banket. President Robert Mugabe has urged his officers to “act tough” on crime.