On the day Musengeyi lost his son, he heard about the shootings but not once did he imagine that his son was the victim. When the news finally got to him that Munashe had been killed, it was made worse by the knowledge that someone from their village had been responsible.

Eye witnesses said Muvevi arrived at the business centre and called out to Munashe who was sitting with others on the veranda of one of the shops.

After speaking for a few minutes, people were shocked to hear a gunshot and then see Munashe falling. No one knows what was discussed between the two but there were no raised voices or any sign of a fight. They are not even sure if Munashe knew Muvevi.

All they can do is speculate.

Even his father might never know why his son was killed.

“I am in pain right now, especially knowing that a person I once called a classmate could take my child’s life. If I were to meet him today, I don’t think our meeting would end well. It’s unfortunate that a person I grew up with, such a quiet person who never fought with anyone, can think of such a heinous thing,” he said in tears.

But it was not only Musengeyi and his family who lost his loved ones to Muvevi’s actions.

Madzibaba Sirage (Kanerusine) had relatives who knew his killer. His niece, Netsai Tiriboyi was also in the same class with the killer.

She was at the shrine when Muvevi shot her uncle and she only got to know later that the man who had produced a gun at the shrine was once a classmate.

“When he arrived at the shrine, I did not immediately recognise him. After he had shot my uncle, and people started saying his name, that is when it clicked that I knew him. We were in the same class at St Mathias Ruswa and we finished our O-Levels in 1999. He was a cool person and I don’t remember a time he was in trouble. After school we went our separate ways. It is so painful that my father had to die at the hands of someone who was part of our village,” she said.

A young Muvevi had once been a part of the church that he later came back to for a killing.

According to the community, as a child, he would go with his mother to church every week. He had stopped when he reached his teenage years.

Although he was no longer part of the church, Muvevi was still part of the community.

“We hear the man who has done such a heinous thing is a child from this village who went to school here. It pains us that a child from here can go out there and come back to do such a bad thing. We actually expected that our children would come back with good initiatives that help the area to develop, not to bring death and grief to us,” said Mr Stephen Mutombwa, a villager in Ruzane village.

Another villager Mr Fanuel Mapindu said the whole community was still waiting to hear why Muvevi had decided to bring so much pain and heartache in a community where he grew up.

Maybe now that he has been caught, the killer himself will provide answers to what was going on in his mind when he went back to the village of his origin and did the unthinkable.

Only time will tell. Herald