Abel Zhakata
Senior Reporter
A 27-YEAR-OLD Rusape domestic worker who fatally axed his two employers in cold blood three days after being employed in 2019 has been slapped with two life sentences by Supreme Court Judge, Justice Hlekani Mwayera.
Elvas Mukono was convicted of two counts of murder with actual intent after a full trial.
Justice Mwayera, who had presided over the matter before her recent elevation to the Supreme Court bench, passed Mukono’s sentence last week.
In convicting Mukono, Justice Mwayera said he was a right candidate for the gallows in view of how he butchered his vulnerable elderly employers.
She said only his young age spared him the death penalty.
During trial, Mukono pleaded for leniency, saying he was drunk when he committed the heinous offence but the State, led by principal public prosecutor Ms Jane-Rose Matsikidze, said he acted out of greed.
Ms Matsikidze said when Mukono discovered that his employers had foreign currency in the house which they wanted to use to buy stock feed, he planned to kill them.
She told the court that Mukono could have used any other means to threaten his employers to surrender the foreign currency to him than to butcher them in cold blood.
Ms Matsikidze said Mukono’s employers were elderly people who could have easily submitted to subtle forms of threats.
Justice Mwayera and the State concurred that the way the murder was planned and executed warranted capital punishment, but Mukono’s youthfulness was taken into consideration.
Mukono, who was represented by Mr Cosmas Chibaya of Chibaya and Associates, told the court that he was enraged by his late bosses’ failure to pay him for a job he had completed and butchered them on May 24, 2019.
The court heard that the deceased, Elson Mberi (74) and his wife Faina (72), employed Mukono on May 21 as a domestic worker.
During the course of his employment, Mukono learnt that Faina had foreign currency in her possession and hatched a plan to rob her.
Before retiring to bed on May 23, Mukono took an axe and kept it in his bedroom.
“Around 4am, on the following day, Mukono armed himself with the axe and proceeded to the kitchen where Elson was.
“He struck him once on the head and left him for dead. He stole Elson’s Nokia phone and torch before heading to the couple’s bedroom where Faina was sleeping and used the same axe to strike her.
‘‘He threw the axe on the bed and ransacked the bedroom till he found the money. He also stole Faina’s cellphone, gathered his clothes and fled,” said Ms Matsikidze.
Faina’s body was discovered by another employee that same morning.
Elson was still alive, but later died at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals on June 1, 2019.