Last Friday, Lawrence Moyo, 45, was jailed for eight years for what a Bulawayo judge described as a “brutal, indiscriminate, barbaric and beastly” attack.

“The courts needs to send a message to macho men like you out there that they will not be treated leniently if they brutalise women,” Justice Maphios Cheda told Moyo before sentencing.

Moyo’s trial heard that his marriage to Yvonne Dumani, 34, was on the rocks and he had invited her back to his home in Madlambuzi, Bulilima, on March 25 last year to talk things over.

At about 3.30AM the next day, the court heard that Dumani, who had moved in with her parents in the nearby Ngwala village, asked Moyo to accompany her back.

Moyo told police that a row broke out over when he would be approaching Dumani’s parents to ask for her return as part of a traditional custom.

Prosecuting, Nonhlanhla Ndlovu said Moyo informed Dumani that he would only be able to come for her after April 6 when he hoped to sell one of his beasts to raise money.

This infuriated Dumani who, the prosecutor said, declared that she was breaking off the relationship for good and demanded her kitchen utensils.

“He tied her wrists with a chain and her legs with a wire before assaulting her all over the body with mopane switches and a sjambok,” Ndlovu said.

“As I was cleaning her wounds, she told me that she was running out of breath and asked me to lift her up. In the process of lifting her, she went limp and died in my arms. I placed her on the bed, started fanning her and administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” Moyo said in a statement to the police.