A weeping Plumtree mother narrates how her son was tortured until he began urinating blood.

Greetings to you all, I am Shepard’s mother.

I am here to narrate how my son Shepard died.

Shepard was in bed the whole morning until Trust came and asked to wake him up so they go and fix a car radio. The car belonged to Prince. Trust had been asked by Prince to fix the car radio.

Punso is the one who stole the car radio from Vitalis’ house, this is the same radio which was sold to Prince.

Prince then asked Trust to help him fix the radio, Prince then approached Trust to help him with the task.

They fixed the car radio together while Shepard was having a beer or two.

On Monday Shepard woke up and went to work, there he mentioned Ngwanyana’s car at the Council and they asked for Shepard, that’s how he was taken into the police station. The CID swore that he was going to tell the truth of what transpired with the radio and the tool box of which he denied any knowledge of. Shepard mentioned that what he knows is that Trust brought a car radio which he fixed in my yard on Prince’s car.

Then they started torturing him, beating him up and electrocuting him (Shepard). They whipped him underneath his feet, while he was chained in irons.

This caused so much pain to him until he relented and couldn’t take it anymore. Then they took a bench and laid him on top; they started jumping and stomping on him until his back was damaged.

Shepard was injured in his head, spinal cord, and his head suffered internal bleeding. He had a severe headache which made it difficult for him to lift up his head. Shepard stated that when he is walking, he feels too much pain from the beatings.

He was taken to court after 4 days being in remand prison. There was no transport to court however Chicco gave them a lift to the court house. At the courts it was asked what happened since Shepard could not manage to stand up on his own. Shepard announced that he was assaulted by the CIDs, Chicco, Ngwanyana, an unnamed lady and a man.

Shepard reiterated that he knows Chicco and Ngwanyana well. Shepard mentioned that Chicco drives a green car and Ngwanyana drives a white one.

They were taken back into remand and called for another court hearing session where he asked for bail to attend hospital treatment as he could not handle the pain anymore.

He was granted bail and left for his home. He was struggling to walk.

Puntso who is alleged he is the one who took the radio stated he told police officers not to beat them up as he is the one who stole the radio.

Pintso said that he went to Vitalis’ house and found the owner playing on his phone indoors, Pintso then proceeded to steal the radio. The owner turned on the lights and Pintso ran away leaving the boot of the car open. Pintso stated that he did all that these guys accused are innocent of

Despite this they assaulted Shepard nearly killing him. I took Shepard to the hospital. The police came to take a statement from him. Shepard mentioned that he was taken from work and tortured by the CIDs and he reiterated that he will not stop saying that he was beat up by Chicco and Ngwanyana.

He went downhill after the statement was taken by the police, Mangena came in and he only greeted Madam Mangena and didn’t want to engage with other guys.

Shepard was in serious pain and did not manage to talk afterwards. He began urinating blood.

Shepard was taken to Mpilo however when he returned, he was in a critical condition unable to talk or turn himself. At the hospital he was given drip medication  which I bought for him at a cost of $280, including some urinating tunes.

He could no longer urinate, and he was now using a catheter tube.

I then suddenly got a call around 5am that Shepard has passed away. I went up to the hospital to confirm and found out that indeed he is no more. The hospital staff mentioned he was struggling to breathe three days from non eating; he was weak. Shepard had been breathing through oxygen aids.

When the top officers at the camp heard about Shepard’s passing away, they said they will come over to apologise about what happened; they want good working relations to avoid squabbles.

The post-mortem will be done in a few days so that we establish what happened.

At the moment I am struggling to feed people who have come to the funeral wake as I have no support. I am currently not working and my husband is redundant. He is nursing his health at the moment. He was being looked after financially by Shepard.

I am in deep pain and in need of support in this matter. The perpetrators are still out there at large. I am appealing for help on how to get justice for my deceased son.h That’s all I know what transpired.

I thank you.

The mother can be contacted on +263 78 336 3754