Wife burns small house's home

A MWENEZI woman will rue the day she said yes to a love proposal by a married man when she and her three children survived death by a whisker after her boyfriend's wife torched the hut they were sleeping in and two other huts.
The four managed to escape the inferno with minor burns although nothing was salvaged from the huts as property, food and clothing items were razed to ashes.
This was heard when the woman - Vonai Zhou (31) of village Finos, Chief Mazetese in Mwenezi appeared at Mwenezi district circuit court before Masvingo based magistrate, Mr Timeon Makunde,  facing charges of attempted murder as defined in section 47 as read with section 189 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act, Chapter 9: 23.
She pleaded guilty and was remanded in custody in Masvingo to next week.
The State case as presented by the prosecutor, Mr Willard Chasi, was that sometime last month Vonai got wind that her husband was seeing another woman whose husband crossed into South Africa sometime ago.
Having watched her husband's movements for some time, the jealousy pricked woman became sure that the rumour doing the rounds was indeed true.
The State told the court that on the day in question, she woke up around midnight while she was sleeping with her husband and told him that she was going outside claiming she had a running stomach.
She then walked a distance of two kilometres from her home to the girlfriend's place where she torched three huts including the one she and her three minor children were sleeping in.
It was the State case that after committing the crime she went back to her home and slept as if everything was normal.
Mr Chasi told the court the "girlfriend" and her children were awoken by the unusual heat they were feeling as some of the thatch was falling on them and realised that the hut was engulfed in flames. They only managed to open the door that fortunately was not locked from outside and got out although they could not salvage anything from the collapsing roof.
A report was made to police the following morning who attended the scene and identified some footprints which they tracked until they got to Vonai's homestead. Upon interrogation Vonai admitted that she committed the crime out of anger after the complainant snatched her husband.
The "girlfriend'' whose husband is in South Africa was said to be lamenting that she was facing double jeopardy as after losing everything in the inferno, she was likely going to be sent back to her parents after the arrest and admission of guilt by the  arsonist.
She said it was going to be better if Vonai had denied the charges as pleading guilty was enough testimony to her husband that she was indeed in love with another man.