A man returned from South Africa to find his wife in bed with her lover in Tsholotsho. He stabbed him several times, leaving him for dead.
Mandla Ndlovu, 36, pounded Elliot Zondo, 43, with a hammer, sjamboked and beat him up with a metal rod before frenziedly slashing his back with a knife. He did not touch his wife, Sipho Ncube, 21, in the brutal assault at Nembe village under Chief Magama on Monday around 8PM. Ndlovu, drenched in Zondo’s blood, allegedly surrendered himself at Tsholotsho Police Station.
Sources said police officers did not believe Ndlovu, who was still holding a bloodied knife, when he said he had butchered and killed someone he found being intimate with his wife.
“Some of them explained the blood by saying he was mentally deranged and had slaughtered a goat,” said the source. The police officers were later shocked when a group of people came to the station carrying Zondo, who they thought was dead. He was rushed to Tsholotsho District Hospital where he was whisked to Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo, due to the serious nature of his injuries.
The cheating wife, Ncube, admitted to The State Media, in front of her in-laws, that Zondo was her lover. However, she disputed that her husband caught them having sex.
“Zondo knocked at our bedroom and my husband opened the door and attacked him,” she said. “When I shouted for help, my husband’s brothers came to our homestead. I’m not sure what transpired but Zondo was left in a bad state.”
She said she met Zondo last month on a bus when they both were returning from visiting their spouses in South Africa. Ncube said: “We fell in love at once and we’ve been seeing each other at my home, daily since then.”
She said Ndlovu had told her he was not coming home for Christmas but he suddenly arrived on Monday. Ncube said she failed to warn her lover that her husband had come home.
Zondo’s brother, Qhubekani, said he thought Ndlovu’s family abducted his brother and assaulted him. “His father is a member of the neighbourhood watch committee. We found him seated with his sons, guarding my brother who looked dead. When we tried to take him, Mandla refused, actually becoming more aggressive,” said Qhubekani.
“There were chains and a hammer next to the lifeless body and I think they wanted to tie him up overnight. Even his other two sons have been arrested, showing it was a gang assault.”
He said he doubted his brother would survive. Village head Patrick Dube said the Ndlovu family should not have taken the law into their hands. “Ndlovu’s father hasn’t even reported the matter to me yet he’s a man of the law,” said Dube.
Ndlovu’s father, Mahamba, said his son summoned the family on the day he arrived from South Africa and told them his wife was having an affair. He said Ncube shocked everyone when she admitted she was having an extra-marital relationship, without showing remorse or shame.
Mahamba said he was told the following day that his son had killed someone. “My grandchildren came running to the school that I guard, saying Mandla had killed someone,” he said.
“I rushed there to find a seriously injured man who had passed out. I ordered them to pour water on him and blood was oozing out of many parts of his body,” said Mahamba. He said he ordered his sons to surrender themselves to the police.
“The assault was serious. I’m told the victim has been transferred to Mpilo and the boys are in the police cells,” he said. State Media