Top cop murders wife over illicit affair
A police officer’s jealousy turned deadly when he killed his wife over rumors she was seeing another man. Now he’ll spend 15 years behind bars for what he did.
The Mutare High Court heard how Cuthbert Mupfuki, a 37-year-old officer from the ZRP Support Unit at Sierra Troop in Changadzi, stabbed his wife Brenda Manyara multiple times with an okapi knife. She died on the spot during the attack, which happened on October 10 last year.
Mupfuki tried to fix things the old way by paying 30 cows to his dead wife’s family. But Justice Isaac Muzenda wasn’t having it. He told Mupfuki that cows couldn’t bring back a life.
“The accused’s actions betrayed his position as a law enforcement officer sworn to uphold the law,” Justice Muzenda said during the ruling. He pointed out that even though Mupfuki showed he was sorry, killing someone is too serious to ignore.
Nobody ever proved Manyara was actually cheating. But Mupfuki let rumors and jealousy push him to murder. The court found out he didn’t just snap – he planned the whole thing and was extremely violent when he did it.
His lawyers tried everything to get him less time. They talked about how his family needed him because he was the only one bringing money home. They kept bringing up those 30 cows he paid. But the prosecutors showed how he carefully planned to kill his wife and how brutal he was about it.
The judge wanted to send a message to everyone else. He said people need to find better ways to handle their marriage problems. Being jealous or mad doesn’t give anyone permission to kill.
Now Mupfuki’s heading to a maximum-security prison. His case shows everyone that you can’t just follow traditional ways of saying sorry when you’ve killed someone – you still have to face the law. The judge hopes this case will make people think twice before letting jealousy turn into violence.
