Tensions between two Harare families have hardened after a handwritten note said to have been left by a Dzivarasekwa Extension woman who killed her husband and then herself was reportedly discovered by relatives packing her belongings for burial.
Lyliosa Chirara, a 43-year-old nurse, is alleged to have struck her husband Martin Muduva, a 42-year-old commissioner with the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, with an axe during a domestic dispute at their home before ending her own life shortly afterwards.
Note surfaces during burial preparations
According to accounts given to local media by people close to the family, the document came to light while a group of women were sorting Chirara’s clothing and personal effects ahead of her burial in Njanja. Custom requires that a deceased person’s garments and belongings accompany the body to the grave, and it was during that packing that the paper was reportedly found tucked among her clothes together with other documents.
A friend of the deceased, Nancy Tembo, said the discovery immediately changed the mood in the house. She said members of the Chirara family read the note after informing the Muduva side of its existence, a decision that is said to have angered some of Muduva’s relatives. The dispute, she added, was sharp enough that mourners left the Dzivarasekwa Extension property abruptly, and no one from the Muduva family attended the burial.
What the note is said to contain
The text, as described by those who claim to have seen it, is a lengthy farewell addressed to relatives, children and in-laws. In it, the writer is said to state that she had meant her marriage vows literally, and that she had always understood the union would end only in death.
She is said to have asked her family for forgiveness, describing years of what she characterised as torment, emotional neglect and humiliation. Among her claims: that her husband had not shared a bedroom with her between 2022 and 2025; that he regarded his doctorate as placing him above a wife he considered uneducated; that he concealed his earnings from her; and that he blocked her from starting a small poultry and egg business.
The note also refers to a period in which, according to the writer, Muduva lived with another woman before returning home. She states that she only learned of a separate marriage to that woman after seeing a social media post about a roora ceremony. The name Patience Mangwiro appears repeatedly in the account, with the writer directing remarks at her and at a family elder she accuses of encouraging her husband to find a more educated partner while doing nothing to help her own marriage.
Addressing her children, the writer acknowledges that they knew nothing of her plans, apologises for failing them, and asks that they be cared for.
Police yet to obtain the document
National police spokesperson Commissioner Paul Nyathi said investigators were still working on both the killing and the subsequent death. He indicated that the Zimbabwe Republic Police had not yet taken possession of the note that has been the subject of so much discussion.
“Police are investigating the murder and sudden death by suicide cases in Dzivarasekwa Extension,” he said, adding that the alleged note had not been handed over to the force.
Relatives quoted in the reports said the couple had at one stage discussed divorce, suggesting the marriage had been under strain for some time before the fatal incident.
Unanswered questions
The circumstances surrounding the killing remain under investigation, and none of the claims contained in the note have been tested in any formal proceeding. Muduva’s family has not publicly responded to the contents attributed to the document.
What is clear is that a tragedy in a quiet Harare suburb has now spilled into a public dispute over a piece of paper, with two grieving families divided over whether it should have been read at all — and what it means for how the deaths are remembered.
