Woman confesses to witchcraft on deathbed

RESIDENTS of Masvingo's Mucheke A are living in fear after a woman in the same suburb confessed to witchcraft and mentioned the name of a prominent figure's son in the city as one of her victims before she died.

Sources privy to the goings on in the high-density suburb said the woman, who passed on last week, made the startling confession when she was just on the verge of death and even approached some families and told them how she and four other alleged witches living in the same area allegedly bewitched them.

After narrating how the group, comprising two men and three women, practised witchcraft on the families, the woman allegedly begged for forgiveness and told them that seeking forgiveness was the only way she could die peacefully.

The woman and her colleagues are allegedly to have executed their bizarre practice on a 42-year-old man who died in December 2010. The woman gave testimony to the allegations.

Before her death, she allegedly went to the family, the Tapambwas, where she told them she knew that they suspected their son had died of HIV and Aids when in fact she and her "accomplices" teamed up and killed him before eating his flesh after he was buried at the nearby Runyararo West Cemetery.

The woman is said to have later gone onto the streets where she confessed to anybody who cared to listen that she was a witch who had killed many people in the area and sent snakes to others with the assistance of her partners in crime, one of whom was her neighbour.

In an interview with Sunday News, Ms Chiwoniso Tapambwa, a sister to the man the woman claimed to have killed in December 2010, denied that her brother was bewitched. She said he had died of natural causes.

"He came from South Africa already sick. He had swollen legs and we don't know how it can be possible that a person from here (in Masvingo) could be held responsible. We believe the woman's confession could be the result of the illness she suffered from. She was mentally challenged," said Ms Tapambwa.

But a neighbour to the late woman was adamant that her confessions were "genuine" and that she believed that the woman was truly a witch because of what she did and said to her before her death.

She said sometime last year she experienced rare incidents where snakes got into her bedroom at night.