A MAN who beat his girlfriend to death with logs was on Tuesday jailed for 20 years after a judge rejected his defence that he flew into a rage after condoms fell out of her pockets.
Pio Pedzisai Masiiwa, 48, of Mavise Resettlement in Mvuma, beat Jenica Burede, 36, so hard with a log on the head that it broke.
As she begged for her life, he picked up another pole and continued the brutal assault until she lay in a lifeless heap, the Gweru High Court heard.
She died within hours at Mvuma Hospital.
Justice Meshack Cheda of the Bulawayo High Court, on circuit in Gweru, told Masiiwa he could have stopped the assault anytime before “the situation turned grave”.
He has the next 20 years behind bars to calm down, the judge added.
Shepherd Robert Mafa, for the state, told the court that just after 7.30PM on September 30 last year, Masiiwa was walking home when he came across Burede who was in the company of a friend, Moleen Chivige.
The pair were headed for the local shops at Mavise.
He confronted his girlfriend about where she was going at that hour, and the couple argued. He walked her back to her friend’s home, and the row escalated when they got there with Chivige seemingly powerless to calm them.
Masiiwa, the court heard, then picked up a log and struck Burede several times on the head and all over the body until the log broke into pieces.
He then picked another log from the fireplace and struck her again on the head, and she fell down, unconscious.
Panicking, Masiiwa attempted to resuscitate her by pouring water on the head, the court heard.
She died at 8.30AM the following morning at Mvuma Hospital.
Masiiwa claimed that Burede had grabbed him by his manhood and during a tussle, condoms had dropped out of her pocket.
"We were in love for five years and when condoms fell out of her pockets, added to the fact she was going to the shops late at night, that made me angry," he said.