SOME are pushed by mental disorders, some do it for revenge and others may have just been plain evil, but whatever the case, stories of murderers and serial killers are just filled with shocking elements that always leave many chilled to the bone.

Such is the case of several murder cases recorded in Zimbabwe in recent times, including that of the Chivhu woman, Emelda Marizanhi, who was this Friday convicted of killing her four children in 2020.

While Bright Zhantali is arguably one of Zimbabwe’s most infamous and notorious serial killers, alongside Stephen Chidhumo and Edgar Masendeke, who made headlines in the 1990s, the country has also had a man who confessed to have killed over 50 people back in the 1980s.

Samson Kanderayi’s story ended in 1982 when he committed suicide after his six year killing orgy, including the brutal mutilation of eight women.

While the stories of Kanderayi, Chidhumo, Masendeke and Zhantali involved strangers, there is perhaps none more unimaginable than a parent killing their own child.

The case of convicted Chivhu woman, Emelda Marizani also fits in the frame of high profile murder cases that Zimbabweans will hardly forget.

This is after she slit the throats of her four children back in 2020 after a dispute with her husband, Lameck Bande.

Several such cases continue being reported across the country.

In January this year, a 24-year-old woman from Buhera, Manicaland Province, Mary Rukobo was arrested for murder after she struck her two-month-old baby and killed him with a rock during a prayer session.

Rukobo, who hails from Mashangana Village in the Muzokomba area in Buhera, allegedly confessed to some villagers that she crashed the heads of her two kids against a rock several times during a prayer session after hearing a voice instructing her to kill them.

Also in January, a Hatcliffe couple in Harare, Fortunate Muchenje and her husband Joseph Bondoro was arrested for the murder of their one-month-old baby under unclear circumstances.

In December last year, another couple from Mabvuku; Samson Jackson (46) and his wife, Martha Gomo (32), was also remanded in custody for allegedly conniving to kill their new born baby before stashing the body in a bucket and disposing of it in a trench.

In the same month, a 36-year old man from Cowdry Park suburb in Bulawayo allegedly murdered his estranged wife and went on to sexually abuse the corpse in full view of their children before committing suicide.

The suspect, Judge Evans Zinzombe (36) allegedly fled the scene, leaving the children aged 12 and 7 years with the body locked inside a room.

Most of the recent cases are still pending at the courts.

However, there are some that have ended in acquittals on the grounds of insanity, with one involving a Chiredzi doctor who killed his two children back in 2021 being a case in point.- ZBC News