Cameroonian on trial for killing Zim nurse

‘She doesn’t take me to heaven any more’
What murder suspect told pal

MURDERED: Ella Chimweta

• UK police raids net 14 suspects in £7m fraud

• HIV+ asylum seeker jailed for biting cop

• Dad makes appeal over wanted child killer

• Jail fro A13 wrong way driver

• Zim man in £3,2m church swindle jailed

• Did Zimbabwean mastemind £3,2 million swindle?

• Zimbabwean stole £2,243 from care home

• Drug dealer faces deportation from UK

• Zim beauty queen stabbed, lover killed in Hull

• Man held over Zimbabwe nurse's murder

• Police made to wait on naked knifeman

• Naked knifeman charged over stepmum's murder

• Man wanted over UK murder of Zim nurse

• 4 Zimbabwean workers lose UK appeal

• UK judge wants airport alert Zim man deported

• UK jail for illegal Zimbabwean workers

• Jail for Zim man who battered ex-girlfriend

• Zim couple arrested over human trafficking

• Zim man accused of rape claims racism

• Crime Watch fugitive arrested

• 3 Zim asylum seekers held in dawn raid

• Casanova secretly married 5 women

• Zim pair jailed for mail bag thefts in UK

• Makwavarara's son infected 6 girls with HIV

• Arson accused should have been deported 2 years ago

By Staff Reporter

A CAMEROONIAN man accused of murdering a Zimbabwean nurse in July last year and leaving her decomposing body in the same room with her 11-year-old daughter told a friend in the days leading to her death: “She doesn't want to have sex with me. She doesn't take me to heaven any more.”

Daniel Tambengwa has denied killing Ella Chimweta, 32, at their home in the Highwoods area of Colchester in July last year.

A trial at Chelmsford Crown Court heard this week that the arrival of Ella’s daughter, who had come to live with the couple, had caused a strain in the relationship. Tambengwa, prosecutors said, was unhappy that the pair sometimes spoke in SHONA – a language that he does not understand.

It is alleged that after killing “the love of his life”, Tambengwa, 30, then tried to force the young girl, who only arrived in the UK on June 7, into a sexual activity and made her watch pornographic films with him.

The jury of eight men and four women was told that Chimweta, who worked at Colchester General Hospital, suffered bruising to her neck, possibly fracturing it, consistent with being strangled.

Richard Christie QC, prosecuting, said by the time Chimweta's partially clothed body was found in her bedroom, it was so badly decomposed it was difficult to tell exactly what had happened on the evening of July 9 or morning of July 10.

However, he said there were no signs that she died of natural causes.

Christie said the morning after allegedly killing Chimweta, Tambengwa then “tried to engage” the youngster, who was oblivious to the murder, in sexual activity after she showered.

He is said to have pushed her on to her bed - attempting to pull her towel away, asking her to show her body.

The girl resisted but it is alleged that later that day Tambengwa tried to make her watch a pornographic film, exposing himself to her, and inviting her to copy what was happening on the screen.

He was to later tell police that he had been “in a trance”.

The jury was told that it was not until a week after the alleged murder that the child left the ground-floor flat at Weetmans Drive, and alerted a passer-by.

She went up to a senior nursing sister Claire Gowland and her four-year-old daughter, and said: “I need your help, I need the police - she is dead in the flat.”

The pair followed the youngster into the main bedroom of the flat where they discovered Chimweta's body hidden underneath clothes and luggage to the side of the bed.

Christie told the jury that Tambengwa fled to Cameroon within 36 hours of Chimweta's death – leading police on an international man-hunt.

The court heard Tambengwa was due to graduate as a bio-medical scientist on July 18.

After meeting in 2004 and living together in London the couple moved to Colchester, taking out the lease on the flat in April 2006.

When they renewed the lease a year later, the letting agent described Chimweta as “bubbly and chatty” but said Tambengwa had been reluctant to sign again.

Christie said Tambengwa had not reacted well to the arrival of the young girl, and Chimweta told a practice nurse on June 25 that they were “having problems”.

It is also alleged that Tambengwa became angry when Chimweta and the young girl spoke to each other in Shona because he did not understand.

Christie said although it was not known what the couple argued about on the night of the alleged killing, he said there had been “significant tensions” since the youngster arrived.

He said Tambengwa was “not a one-woman man” and had been having sexual relationships with at least two other women.

Tambengwa had also complained to a friend, saying: “Ella doesn't want to have sex with me any more. She doesn't take me to heaven any more.”

Tambengwa, who was arrested in Cameroon, has denied murdering Chimweta on or about July 9 and pleaded not guilty to further charges of inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity and of trying to make a child look at images of sexual activity between July 8 and 11.

The trial continues.
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com