02/09/2026
KILLED DETECTIVE CASSANDRA HOVE, NO JUSTICE FOR HER 1 YEAR, 5 MONTHS, 25 DAYS LATER
By Fanuel Viriri
Cassandra Hove, a member of the elite all-female Criminal Investigation Department crack unit, Queen Lozikeyi, was shot dead 1 year, 5 months and 25 days ago, during a CID operation in Pumula South, but the case is yet to be concluded.
A CID officer, Constable Nomore Muradzikwa, was initially arrested for shooting the 37-year-old mother of four during the March 6, 2025 raid on armed robbers in Habek, an area in Pumula South, Bulawayo but was released on US$100 bail after telling the court the bullet that hit a robber's arm ricocheted and struck Hove in the chest — leaving the force struggling for over 543 days to conclude a case involving one of its own, despite ballistic evidence and a reported confession.
What started as a heroic pursuit has turned into an embarrassing indictment of the Zimbabwe Republic Police's own investigative capacity.
On the night of March 6, 2025, at around 8:40PM, Hove and her team from CID Homicide Bulawayo were tracking a gang that had been terrorising service stations in Bulawayo. In Habek, gunfire was exchanged.
Initial police statements claimed Hove was shot by armed robbers. National police spokesperson Commissioner Paul Nyathi then announced a full investigation, with Commissioner-General Stephen Mutamba assuring the family that "no stone will be left unturned."
Days later, the narrative collapsed. The family, through spokesperson Ryan Gambinga, revealed after a meeting with ZRP Bulawayo that police had confirmed it was a fellow officer, not robbers, who fired the fatal shot. The family also alleged they were excluded from the post-mortem process, with someone else signing as next of kin at the clinic where Hove was pronounced dead.
Police sources then claimed Constable Nomore Muradzikwa of Hillside Police Station had confessed to the shooting and was held at Donnington Police Station, saying he did not need a lawyer.
Yet when Muradzikwa finally appeared in court on March 17, 11 days after the killing, the story changed again. His lawyer Tinashe Tashaya argued it was a tragic accident — that two guns were fired at the robber, a bullet bounced off the robber's arm and hit Hove, and the team didn't even notice she was bleeding until they reached the clinic. He said the delay in arrest was because police had to wait for post-mortem and ballistic reports to determine which gun fired the fatal bullet.
High Court Judge Justice Nokuthula Moyo granted him US$100 bail then, with conditions to reside at his given address, not interfere with witnesses — who are all police officers — and report weekly. The State, represented by Kudakwashe Jaravaza, had opposed bail.
Since April 15, the docket has gone cold.
And that is the crux of the criticism: If police cannot solve a murder that happened in front of their own officers, with the suspected gun in their own armoury, the bullet recovered during their own post-mortem, witnesses who are their own detectives, and a suspect who allegedly confessed in their own police station, what hope is there for ordinary citizens?
The excuses given in court — waiting for ballistics — no longer hold. Ballistic reports take weeks, not 17 months. The witnesses are not hostile villagers to be traced in the bush; they are trained CID officers stationed in Bulawayo. There is no absconding accused to hunt across borders like the Ecobank Vumbunu brothers — Muradzikwa is reporting weekly to the police as part of his bail.
Hove was not just any officer. Officer Commanding Bulawayo, Commissioner Jasper Chizemo, described her as hardworking and brave. She was handpicked for CID Homicide for her brilliance, a founding member of the Queen Lozikeyi crack unit, soft-spoken, studious, and had just secured a scholarship to study forensic investigations in Russia. She left behind four children.
Her family buried her in Mataruse Village, Mberengwa, but says it has not buried its questions.
The ZRP's mantra is "there is no going back in the fight against armed robberies." Yet 543 days after one of their own fell — not to robbers' bullets but allegedly to friendly fire — the force has failed to give her family and her four children a simple answer: was it an accident, negligence, or something else, and who will be held accountable?
