HARARE – Three senior citizens aged 74, 80 and 86 were brutally murdered by an 18-year-old teenager who says he was avenging the killing of his parents.
Manicaland police are holding Energy Chipinda over the gruesome murders in Chitsanza Village, Buhera, last Thursday evening.
National police spokesman Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said among the dead was a husband and wife aged 86 and 74 respectively, and an 80-year-old woman.
A large crowd gathered at the homestead where the murders happened at dawn on Friday to witness the removal of the bodies on a police pick-up truck.
Chipinda told a news crew at the scene: “I arrived at around 11PM coming from the bar. I wanted to kill them because they murdered my parents, but my plan was to kill only the old man. His wife was very fond of me, I just don’t know what came over me.”
He said he killed the three elderly villagers by pounding them on their heads with a rock as they slept.
He did not explain how the couple murdered his parents.
Neighbour Phenias Chikomba said: “We were woken up at around 11PM by a disturbance coming from my neighbour’s home. The young man was shouting on top of his voice that anyone who comes near he will kill them. That’s when I woke up my brother and we called the police. There was blood everywhere.”
Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said police urged members of the public “to desist from acts of violence and seek guidance in resolving disputes.”
The slain family was related to Buhera South MP Joseph Chinotimba.
