Fidelis Munyoro - Chief Court Reporter — The sun had long set on that fateful October evening in 2018, but darkness seemed to have settled deeper in the heart of Chimani Tsambola, who was consumed by betrayal, rage and sorrow.
The air was heavy, with the scent of damp earth and tobacco fields at Dudley Estate in Marondera, about 74 kilometres east of Harare, but inside Chimani, a storm raged--a tempest of emotions that had been brewing for weeks.
His marriage to Portia Masaiti had been a tumultuous composition of love and suspicion.
The music had stopped, leaving only the deafening silence of heartbreak.
Portia had left.
Chimani told himself it was infidelity that had driven her away, but deep down, he knew it was more than that. She had grown weary of the accusations, the fights and the oppressive weight of a love that had curdled into something unrecognisable.
She had taken refuge in a small kitchen in the compound of a neighbouring farm, her children by her side, trying to piece together a life that no longer included him.
But Chimani could not let go. He refused to let go. The iron bar was cold in his hands as he walked through the night.
He had no invitation, no right to be there, but he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame, even though he knew it would only end in destruction.
The house stood silent under the starlit sky, its walls a fragile barrier against the storm he carried within. He pushed the door open, and there she was, Portia, the woman he had once loved beyond reason, now a stranger to him.
She did not scream. Maybe she saw the pain in his eyes, or maybe she knew there was no use.
The first blow fell like thunder. A crack against her skull that echoed in the night. She stumbled, but Chimani did not stop. Each swing of the iron bar was a punctuation mark in a sentence of fury he had been writing in his head for days.
The blood splattered against the walls, painting a grotesque canvas of his anguish. When the bar finally fell from his trembling hands, Portia lay still, her lifeless body crumpled on the veranda.
He stared at her for a moment, his breath ragged, his vision blurred by tears he did not know he was shedding. Then, as though possessed by a force beyond his control, he lit a match.
The flames grew quickly, consuming the home that had sheltered Portia, her secrets, and perhaps her lover. The fire roared into the night, a sign of his despair and madness.
When the neighbours arrived, drawn by the light of the inferno, it was too late.
Portia's body lay cold and broken; the house reduced to smouldering ruins. The iron bar that had stolen her life was discarded near the cattle kraal, a silent witness to the horror that had unfolded.
Chimani was nowhere to be found.
For days, he hid. The tobacco fields became his sanctuary, the mountains his solace.
He told himself he was haunted by evil spirits, that something beyond his control had guided his hand. But the reality was simpler and harsher.
He could not face what he had done. When the police finally caught him, Chimani was gaunt, his eyes hollow, his soul weighed down by the enormity of his crime.
In the courtroom, the stories unravelled. He spoke of self-defence, of being attacked by Portia's alleged lover, Douglas Mazengera.
He claimed he had acted to save himself, that he had not meant to kill her estranged wife. But the evidence told a different story. The iron bar, the blood-streaked walls, the deliberate act of setting the house ablaze, all of it painted a portrait of premeditated violence.
The witnesses spoke of his jealous, his anger, the ominous way he had taken the children to his mother's home days before the murder, as if clearing the stage for the tragedy that was to come.
In his judgment, Justice Munamato Mutevedzi's words were heavy; each syllable a nail in the coffin of the life Chimani had known.
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"This murder typifies the belief held by some men, who apparently have an inflated value of their worth, that 'if I can't have you, then no one will."'
Chimani's head hung low as the sentence was pronounced last week on Thursday: 35 years in prison for the murder of his wife, for the fire that consumed more than just a house--it consumed lives, futures and hope.
In the quiet of his cell, Chimani sits alone, the weight of his regrets heavier than the iron bar he had wielded that night. He sees Portia's face in his dreams, not as it was in those final moments, but as it had been when they first met, smiling, radiant, full of life.
He hears her laughter, the laughter that had once been his greatest joy, now a haunting echo of what he had destroyed.
And so, the years stretch before him, a barren landscape of time, each day a reminder of the life he took, the love he lost and the man he became in the grip of his rage.
