A Bulawayo court has ordered a woman from Emganwini suburb who on Friday night fatally axed her husband following a tiff over the choice of a television channel to watch to go for psychiatric evaluation.
Ordetta Mpofu (44) allegedly murdered her husband Thembani Mpofu (52) for failure to ‘reprimand his daughter’ earlier that evening as they argued over which channel to watch.
The court heard the woman struck her husband three times on the head.
She was not asked to plead to a murder charge by Bulawayo magistrate Shepherd Mjanja.
The woman told the court that the fight over the remote was not the reason why she killed her husband, but that he had told her that their matrimonial home was registered in his name and she would not benefit anything from it.
Magistrate Mjanja ordered that she be examined by two state medical doctors before the case proceeds.
He remanded her in custody to May 8.
State representative, Tendai Zhou narrated to the court that the woman was watching television with her now-deceased husband and two children Thamsanqa and Sisasenkosi.
“At around 7:45 PM, the now deceased was watching television with his family. Sisasenkosi changed the channel they were watching and Ordetta was not happy about it. She ordered Sisasenkosi to return to the previous channel but she refused. A misunderstanding arose between the two and the father did not intervene,” said Zhou.
“The father indicated that he was not involved in their misunderstanding and retired to bed. At around 9:30 PM Ordetta armed herself with an axe, got into their bedroom and axed her husband three times on the head while he was asleep leading to his death.”
Zhou said Ordetta then went to Sisasenkosi while holding the blood-stained axe and told her she had killed her father.
A police report was made leading to her arrest.
