A Chivhu woman Emelda Marizani who killed her four minor daughters in cold blood in 2020 has been found guilty and convicted.
She killed the children as a way to get even with her cheating husband after a long dragging marital dispute, spanning over 10 years.
On the day of the tragedy, Marizani took rat poison before she laced her children’s juice with the same.
She then put them to bed, slit their throats during their sleep one after the other and went on to set her family house on fire.
Marizani was convicted on1 Friday by High Court judge Justice Munamato Mutevedzi after a full trial during which she denied allegations saying she had gone insane during the time she committed the crime.
Judge Mutevedzi dismissed her defence describing her as a cruel mother who cut short four young lives in cold blood.
Marizani is set to be sentenced next Friday.
Court concluded that it was clear Marizani had long planned to kill her children as she had an up to date funeral policy only for the children and was not entirely honest about killing herself too as she had several opportunities to do so but decided not to.
“Her behaviour is because of the acrimony which already existed between her and her husband.
“The accused admits in her statement and oral evidence that she killed her children to spite her husband. She wanted to leave him with nothing they had accumulated together.
“It is very unfortunate she considered her children to be part of their acquisitions
“She took funeral insurance for all her children and this in our view leaves us to doubt she really wanted to commit suicide.
“If she indeed wanted to kill herself she had all the opportunity but she did not put more effort on that as she did with her children,” the Judge said.
Marizani was crying throughout her trial and the trial of her verdict however the Judge said this did not mean she was hurt.
“One can kill her own child but when one goes to kill four it shows that she was determined to do so.
It is on that basis that we are convinced that the State has managed to prove its case beyond any reasonable doubt and the accused is found guilty and convicted in all four murder counts,’ the judge ruled.
The Judge also dismissed medical evidence which supported Marizani’s insanity saying it was unreliable.
At the time Marizani murdered her children, she was heavily pregnant with her fifth child who is the only one surviving.
