By Staff Reporter

BINGA: A man with mental health problems pounded his 87-year-old grandmother to death with a pestle as the elderly woman slept in her bedroom heart, a court heard recently.

The grandmother’s lifeless body was discovered by a 13-years-old boy who was the main witness during the trial of his teenage uncle Bruce Munsaka aged 18.

Munsaka was answering murder charges during the High Court Circuit which is currently underway in Hwange.

He appeared before High Court judge Justice Nokuthula Moyo who retained a special verdict in terms of the Mental Health Act after noting that Munsaka was a known mental patient.

Even so, the judge ordered that Munsaka be committed to Mlondolozi Mental prison at Khami Maximum as he was deemed to be a risk to the society.

Details of the case as presented by Charline Gorerino were that on January 21 last year, Munsaka proceeded to his grandmother Martha Mudimba’s homestead where he found the elderly woman sleeping in her bedroom hut.

Munsaka armed himself with a pestle which he picked at the homestead and entered the bedroom hut where the elderly woman was sleeping and pounded her on the head several times.

“After killing his grandmother around 6am, the accused tied the door with a rope from outside and left the scene,” said the prosecutor.

Testifying in court, the 13-year-old boy said after seeing that his uncle had left, he peeped through the door and saw his lifeless grandmother’s body on the bed and blood on the floor.

“I peeped through the hole on the door and saw her body lying on the bed. There was blood on her head and on the floor,” said the teenage boy.

He said he rushed to inform a neighbour Mejerina Muleya who informed Munsaka’s father Robson Munsaka who lived a few homesteads away.

A report was made to the police leading to Munsaka’s arrest.