They Buried Wrong Body: Horror as ‘murdered’ mukorokoza returns home 3 days after ‘his burial’… Police launch investigation

In Shamva, a family preparing for a memorial service for a missing gold panner saw him walk through their door days after burying a body they believed was his. Separately, relatives from Chipinge found an unfamiliar name on a grave marker at Kumbudzi cemetery.

The Kachirekwa family had begun planning a memorial service and deciding what to do with the clothes of their son, Simbarashe, when he arrived home alive. Three days earlier, they had buried a badly decomposed body they believed was his.

The family, from Shamva in Mashonaland Central, had been told that Simbarashe had been murdered while gold panning. He had gone missing in July, and relatives were told by his workmates that he had been killed and where his body had been left. The family reported the information to police, who searched for and recovered a body.

On August 9, relatives were called to identify it. The remains had been exposed in the bush for a long time and were severely decomposed. The face was no longer clearly recognisable, but the family thought the clothing and other details confirmed that the dead man was Simbarashe.

His older brother, Edzai Kachirekwa, described how they came to accept the body as their relative’s. “We heard that our son had been murdered, so we went to report the matter to the police. We told them we had heard he was killed and that we hadn’t seen him for days,” he said.

“We searched for him until we were told where he was. The police went to recover the body, and we were called to see if it was our relative.

“Looking at the body, we concluded it was our relative, even though the face was no longer clearly recognizable because the body was severely decomposed. One of my sisters even said, ‘This is Simba; I recognize the jacket he is wearing; I am the one who gave it to him.’

“So we were confident it was him. we were given our child, we mourned him, and we laid him to rest properly.”

After the burial, the family returned to the routines of bereavement. But when they gathered with their mother to plan the memorial and the distribution of Simbarashe’s belongings, the man they had mourned appeared at the house.

“On the day we were sitting with our mother planning the memorial service and the distribution of his clothes, we were shocked to see Simba arrive at the house,” Edzai said.

“At first, we thought it was his ghost coming to tell us who had murdered him, but he started talking to us—actually telling us stories. He even started laughing, saying we had buried the wrong person.

“I put him in my car and told him, ‘Let’s go to the cemetery so you can stay where we buried you,’ but he just laughed, saying, ‘Why do you want to leave me at the cemetery when I am alive?’

“So we took him to the Bindura police to inform them that the person we thought we buried on Sunday is here with us. We brought him there, and they were equally shocked. As a family, we are still not at peace; we don’t understand what is happening.”

National police spokesperson Commissioner Paul Nyathi confirmed that the incident had been reported. “We are aware of this case; it was reported to us. As police, we will release full details once we have completed our investigations.”

His relatives were left asking who the deceased man was and how the body came to be mistaken for Simbarashe. The family had reported a suspected killing, identified a body and held a burial before learning that Simbarashe was alive. Police said they would provide further details after completing their investigation.

The family has also split over what should happen next. Edzai said some relatives took Simbarashe to Nyaguwe, in Shamva, for traditional rituals intended to cleanse him and drive away what they described as a “spirit of death”. He said he did not go because of his religious beliefs.

“You know when things like this happen, some say you must seek traditional help so the person can be cleansed. So the boy was taken by other relatives; they are currently seeking those services.

“I refused to go because I am a person of faith; I don’t believe in seeking traditional consultations. So as I speak, I don’t even know where they are,” he said.

The return has unsettled a family that had already reported a suspected killing, identified a body and held a burial. It has also left them unable to complete the grieving rituals they had planned, while the identity of the person in the grave remains unresolved.

A separate discovery at Granville Cemetery, popularly known as Kumbudzi, has brought another grave-marker issue to light. The Murimbirimbi family, also known as the Dhliwayo family, travelled from Zamuchiya in Chipinge to arrange a tombstone for a female relative who died in 2000 and was buried in Section B. They found a stone already standing on the grave, bearing the name of a woman they did not know.

Family spokesperson Pamella Murimbirimbi, 40, who lives in Highfield, Harare, said the relatives were stunned by what they found. The discovery left them seeking an explanation for why a stone bearing an unfamiliar woman’s name stood at their relative’s grave.

The cases unfolded separately: Simbarashe returned home after a body was buried in Bindura, while the Chipinge relatives discovered a grave marker bearing an unfamiliar name at Kumbudzi.

Zimbabwe has seen another recent case involving the burial of the wrong body. In January 2026, a family from Chipinge buried the remains of a 100-year-old woman, Eddina Gwavava, believing they were those of their 85-year-old relative, Nerita Muyambo.

On New Year’s Day, a hearse driver and a mortician mistakenly loaded Gwavava’s body into a hearse, believing it to be Muyambo. The remains were taken to Checheche, where the Muzwati family received them and buried them the following day. The mix-up came to light when Muyambo’s relatives were presented with the wrong body at a funeral home in Mutare and refused to accept it. Police were notified, and procedures began towards exhuming the wrongly buried body.

For the Kachirekwa family, the return of Simbarashe has not ended the ordeal. They still do not know who was buried in Bindura, and the police have yet to release their full findings. In Chipinge, the Murimbirimbi family is left with a different question: why does a marker carrying a stranger’s name stand on their relative’s grave?