TWO people are believed to have been murdered in separate incidents this week before their bodies were found hanging in unclear circumstances in Battlefields and Highfield respectively.

Police have since launched investigations into these two murder cases. No arrests have since been made.

In Highfield, a man was found hanging at an entrance of a bar on Monday morning and police suspect that he could have been robbed and fatally assaulted by unknown assailants.

The man believed to have been a gold panner, was drinking beer at a shopping centre popularly known as MaStones when the incident occurred.

Police said in Battlefields, Cosmas Mataruse (19) was found dead and his body was in a decomposing state a few days after he had been embroiled in a dispute with another man over a cellphone he had dropped.

National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said last Thursday, Mataruse was at a shopping centre in Battlefields where he dropped his cellphone which was then picked up by the man, aged 25.

Mataruse is alleged to have later confronted the man who denied having picked up the cellphone and this resulted in an argument. The man later left and it is reported that Mataruse later followed him and no one knows what happened after that.

“His body was found two days later in a sitting position and he had a wire tied to his neck and then tied on a tree branch about 158 metres from a gravel road. The body was in a decomposing state.

“We are still investigating the case since the circumstances are not clear. It is still not clear what transpired,” Asst Comm Nyathi said.

In a related incident, a Bulawayo man was fatally assaulted with a bench on the head by one of his colleagues he was drinking beer with at a shebeen after being accused of selling him a defective car battery.-The Herald