Killer carjacker remanded in custody
A 29-YEAR-OLD man who allegedly carjacked a taxi driver and killed him, yesterday appeared in court charged with robbery and murder.
Emmanuel Mapfumo of Stand No 4 Thornhill Extension, Gutu, was not asked to plead when he briefly appeared before Beitbridge Magistrate Mr Trevor Nyatsanza who remanded him in custody to October 25.
Mapfumo and his colleagues who are still at large allegedly zapped Cliff Chioza — the taxi driver — with a taser and stabbed him twice on the right side of the chest on October 3.
The incident, which was Beitbridge’s sixth case of robbery in two weeks, occurred near the Mfelandawonye area. Prosecuting, Mr Oswell Arufandi said around 1 AM on October 3, Chioza parked his silver Honda Fit outside Kalahari Sports Bar.
He said Mapfumo emerged from the bar with his “new” girlfriend Perfidious Moyo alias Chipo.
The two hired Chioza to take them to a house in Mfelandawonye suburb where they said they wanted to be intimate. Mr Arufandi said at the woman’s house, Mapfumo ordered her to go inside (the house) and prepare the bed. He then remained with Chioza whom he jolted with a high voltage taser and ordered him to surrender his car. Mapfumo, the prosecutor said, stabbed Chioza twice on the chest using an Okapi knife and threw him out of the vehicle. He then sped off in Chioza’s vehicle living him lying in a pool of blood. Residents spotted Chioza and informed the police. Officers rushed the taxi driver to Beitbridge District Hospital where he was certified dead by doctors. Mr Arufandi said soon after committing the offence, the suspect went to Chatsworth where he sold Chioza’s cellphone. Mapfumo ran out of luck when he was arrested by detectives at a tollgate along the Harare-Mazowe road while driving the stolen vehicle. The detectives searched the vehicle leading to the recovery of the electric shocker and an Okapi knife. They also recovered the cellphone at Chatsworth where it had been sold to another person.