Was this another ritual murder?

The long wait for her missing and loving husband only brought more misery for a woman and her family as all they got was a partly decomposed and half-burnt body.

This is the unfolding of the sad tale of events of the Mukwevho family of Khwekhwe-Ha Mutsha outside Thohoyandou, whose family member, Mulalo Mukwevho (41), has been missing for the past month. He was later found murdered in the dense bushes at a local orchard, not far from his house on Wednesday, July 9. The family believe that he was murdered somewhere, and his body was burnt and dumped in the nearby bushes.

A fortnight ago, this paper published the plight of the Mukwevho family who were frantically looking for their loved one and also published his picture. "All we hoped for was a positive response from the public, but what we got is most shocking and it left us very scared," said Tondani, the wife to the deceased. Tondani (33) said her husband disappeared on the afternoon of June 17, without telling anybody where he was going. "We were not worried as it was natural for him to go out without saying, but he usually came back," she said.

At about 20:00, the family started to panic, as he had not come back home. "We looked for him at relatives and friends whom he frequented, but with no luck," said a sad Tondani. Tondani said they reported the matter to the Levubu police and also to the local traditional leader, who readily arranged a search party in conjunction with the police and local community structures.

River banks, dongas, bushes and surrounding orchards were searched, but yielded no positive results. She said rumours about his whereabouts were being spread, but whenever they followed the leads, they were found to be untrue. "We were told that he had been seen at Tshidzete, Tshakhuma and Shayandima, but we were not able to trace him there."

The sad mother of three kids, aged 15, 13 and 4, said they did not lose hope that one day he would come back home but were very saddened by the latest developments.

"My husband was murdered somewhere and dumped near our home. What happened came as a terrible blow to the family, as we are all not working and survived on his grant," she said.

Ms Merriam Mulidi (56), aunt of the deceased, said the perpetrators deserved a lengthy prison sentence. "How can they do this? They deserve to be punished; this is cruelty at its worst," she said. "It's a pity that his children will now grow up without a father. Breaking the news about his death was a mammoth task for me, and it was so difficult for them to accept," she said.