A 25-YEAR-OLD convict, Bryn Mupayiki, who is serving a 20-year jail term for murder, was yesterday slapped with another 40-year jail term after he was convicted of killing two other victims within a three-month period.
BY CHARLES LAITON
Mupayiki, who was represented by Blessmore Museba, was lucky to escape the hangman’s noose after High Court judge Justice Garainesu Mawadze decided not to send him to the gallows as requested by prosecutor Douglas Chesa. Addressing the court before sentencing, Chesa said Mupayiki deserved capital punishment for the double murders.
“Accused (Mupayiki) does not have a clean record. He was convicted of murder with actual intent by this honourable court and sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment on October 1, 2014,” Chesa said.
“The present two counts accused stands convicted of were also committed when he was 23 years of age. This clearly shows that the accused’s life had turned into that of a habitual savage killer. All the killings were executed in cold blood. For the above reasons, it is my respectful view that a penalty of two death sentences will meet the justice of the case.”
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In respect of the first murder, Mupayiki killed his girlfriend in the Chiadzwa diamond fields, while on the fresh counts before Justice Mawadze, Mupayiki murdered his paternal half-brother Moses Topodzi in February 2013.
The court heard Mupayiki killed Topodzi after he was offended by the latter’s indication of his intention to relocate and stay with the Mupayiki family, where his mother was married to Bryn’s father.
Three months later, in April 2013, Mupayiki masqueraded as a police officer and lured his friend, Mehluli Dhlamini, to a pool of water, where he killed him and weighed the body down with three big stones, submerging it in the pool.