‘I lost everything,’ fire victim speaks

Recently in Njerere, Murewa

He was already in bed with his wife, deep in slumber when suddenly, a rattling, but faint noise awakened him.

His instincts warned him something was right behind his bedroom door.

Listening attentively, a strong smell of petrol, followed by a ball of fire engulfed the bedroom where his wife and their son were sleeping.

The sharp, intense heat coupled with a thick smoke chocked them, blinding their eyes, when again, another bottle filled with paraffin was thrown in, followed by yet another ball of fire, which further visually impaired them.

No one said anything, confusion creeped in, fear gripped them, and with his sixth sense taking charge, he broke the bedroom window, for them to escape the lurking danger.

Little did he know, the suspected murderer, after hearing pieces of the shattered window panes dropping, hid and waited for his prey to appear on that same window.

The suspect knew that the prey would try to jump and rescue his family through that window.

When he attempted to jump, head first, he was met with an empty bottle, which smashed his face, leaving him bleeding from the mouth and nose. He dove back in the bedroom, and to his surprise, he had seen the face of his attacker, the one who wanted him dead, it was his father.

Reality then sank in, his father wanted him dead… the one who sired him wanted him six feet under. The date is May 13, 2023, and it’s a Saturday morning around 3 am and Farai Rupondo (58), who allegedly had a long standing dispute with his son Shepherd Rupondo (34), decided to end his son’s life, by burning him and his family inside their thatched bedroom.

But then, after he lit his son’s bedroom, what then happened? Shepherd had to climb on top of his bicycle inside the room, and got hold of one of roof poles, before flexing his muscles and poked a hold on the roof using his legs.

After that, he had to pull out some dry grass off the roof, squeezed himself out through that roof before jumping to the ground, outside.

He said, the intention was to wrestle away his father from the door he had locked with a wire from the outside. He went straight for his father, while the father was also coming for him.

With the urge to rescue his family, Shepherd managed to release the door but could not rush inside to pull out his family to safety.

“I only managed to free the door while my father was busy attempting to strike me with an axe. After realising that in any minute, the axe would be smashing my head, I darted, and ran, after making sure the door was now unlocked. I shouted to my wife Maybe Boboyena (20) to come outside and run for their lives.

Shepherd Rupondo’s bedroom which was reportedly lit by his father in attempt to kill him. The father later committed suicide after killing the daughter in law and an infant

“My wife, with the child, Anashe Kunaka (2) in her hands, jumped out of the bedroom safely. I sprinted towards the main road, with my father in hot pursuit. No one said anything to each other, it was just a matter of running away with my dear life.” Shepherd went on to say after giving him a good run, his father gave up and stopped.

“He stopped, but he swore at me in a way that scared me, but then that was my father. So then, after my wife came out of the bedroom, she did not know the direction I had taken, and she ran in the same direction where my father was.

“She abruptly stopped in her tracks after coming face to face with him. He lifted the axe he was holding, and attempted to strike my wife but he missed. My wife then turned and ran, with the child in her hands.

“It was clear that after failing to catch me, my father was going to kill my wife.”

He said, his father then started to chase after his wife and along the way, the wife dropped the child to the ground and ran.

“She dropped the child and ran, but in that instant, my father went straight to the child and with the axe in his hand, struck the child on the neck and head. He then proceeded to chase after my wife and first struck her with the same axe on the leg.

My wife then fell down and in a flash, he struck her on the neck and head, and she died. After that, he disappeared. By that time, I had already screamed for help and people were rushing to my homestead. Someone heard the child crying, and that is when we realised that he was still alive.

“We rushed him to Shamva Hospital for treatment, with the hope that he will make it. Nurses at Shamva hospital should be commended for the way they handled Anashe, they are professionals. They realised that his condition was worse and they referred him to Parirenyatwa but unfortunately, Anashe died along the way. So I lost my wife and the child, I lost my clothes, phone, food. I lost everything, my father, after killing my wife and the child, went on to kill himself, so I lost everything” he said fighting the strong urge to cry.

But what could have caused the rift between a father and son, which degenerated their relationship to the extent of the father wanting desperately to wipe his son out of the face of this earth.

“The misunderstanding started when my father started selling land that belonged to the family. I did not want to intervene and let him do it. But the issue started when his brothers started questioning him about selling family land. The issue became a centre of our misunderstanding as a family and we ended up being called at Chief Chikwaka’s court where my father lied that we had agreed with him to sell the land.

“So I denied my involvement in the sell of land and my father became furious since he had lied to the Chief that I was also involved. So the Chief stopped him from further selling the land and ordered some people who had bought it to stop building structures and vacate. All this further strained my relationship with my father. Again, his relationship with his siblings also became strained.

“As our relationship became sour, the people he had sold the land to wanted to be re-imbursed but he had no money. So the only way he could get money was to sell more land. He then decided to sell this homestead where I am staying and I could have non of it. For your information, this homestead was given to me by my late grandparents who are his parents, so I could not agree to the idea of selling it. So this was the tipping point where I could see that our relationship was now irreparable, because he tried every trick to evict me from this home but failed. At one point he allegedly planted some copper cables in my bedroom after breaking the door, and went on to report me to the police that I am in possession of those cables. I was arrested as investigations proceeds. His idea was for me to rot in jail so that he could freely sell this home.

I was blocking him so he wanted to get rid of me. So after all was done, but failed, he decided to kill me by setting the bedroom I was sleeping on fire. Things did not go as per his plan and he ended up killing my wife and the child, that was not expected, I thought he was just after me, not my wife, not the two-year-old child. I am hurt to the bone. You know the feeling of failing to defend your family from outside threat, and doing nothing to save them, at the end you just feel empty, worthless.

“Now I am left with a burden to bury my wife and the child. I had just moved in with my wife and this was our fourth month together. The two year-old child was from her previous marriage and now both are dead. Ngozi yacho ndinoigona here yandasiirwa nababa. Ko ivo vazviuraya vadii kungorarama votsanangura kuti vakazviitirei,” cried Shepherd.

Shepherd’s uncle, the brother to his late father, Mr Machona Rupondo, said they are heartbroken and angry at the same time as a family for what his brother did.

“It is all because of selling land that did not belong to him alone. We ended up going to courts, hiring lawyers simply because of this land. So before this tragedy befell on us, he had said it to some people that because we are against him, he will kill someone.

“Imagine, before the day he killed our daughter-in-law, he even met Shepherd’s friend and told him that he will kill his son (Shepherd). Akaudza Shamwari yemwana wake uyu kuti anoda kupisira Shepherd mumba. That friend came and informed Shepherd about it but he did not take those threats seriously because he was always hearing them on several occasions, little did he knew that for this time, he meant it.

“So on the fateful morning, I was called from my sleep and we rushed here. When I arrived, I saw my daughter-in-law lying face down, half naked and in a pool of blood. She was already dead. I was shocked. My brother was nowhere to be found. We rushed the child to hospital, unfortunately he succumbed to the injuries,”

He said villagers gathered at sunrise and a search team was formed to look for his brother.

“We searched around here and found him in one of the rooms at the homestead, naked, but dead. We suspect that he took rat poison because we found a tin full of those rat killing tablets near his body.

“For me to think that he had killed two people is painful. The thing is he wanted to sell our parents homestead so his child was blocking him hence the need to eliminate him. He was angry for him to the extent that he wanted him dead. What I do not understand is why then killing himself. Because after he was dead, a suicide note was found detailing how he wanted his property to be distributed and also expressing why he killed his son. So it was a pre-planned issue unfortunately it did not come out the way he wanted.

“Now we are left with bills to settle, from our in-laws to the family of the two-year-old child. We have since buried our daughter-in-law in Mavhudzi Village after negotiations with our in-laws. We are still yet to bury the child at his parents place in Gwamuta Village, then lastly my brother will be buried here in Njerere Village, he s still to go under postmortem.”

Unconfirmed reports say the father, before the gruesome murder, bought a packet of biscuits, and handed them to people he met along the road, saying, I vernacular, “Uyu ndiwo muviri wangu, idyai kuti mugondirangarira, unfortunately I do not have wine or a drink with me, I could have also given you so that you also drink it, kuti mugondirangarira.”

When The Herald left the homestead, a handful of mourners were still gathered, shock and disbelief written all over their faces.

-Herald-