TEENAGER TESTIFIES: 17-YEAR-OLD SHARES STORY IN SKELETON CASE
A TEENAGER testified how she was suddenly stopped from entering her friend’s house to play, before a skeleton was later discovered in the same house.
The 17-year-old said the occupants would ignore people knocking on the door and kept the house shut and only one woman would be allowed to enter.
“When this woman is there, around 15:00 hours or 16:00 hours, they would start praying loudly and we would hear them from outside [since we lived at the servant’s quarter].”
She was testifying in a case Sylvia Mutaba, 51, is accused of causing the death of her husband, George Mutaba, in 2023.
The man’s skeletal remains were later found in his house this year in January, leading to the arrest of his wife, three daughters, and the former’s prayer partner, Preteria Mbandama.
Mr Kalaba’s daughters and Mbandama pleaded guilty to failing to report his death to authorities and were sentenced to one-month imprisonment, which they have already served.
Mutaba is solely charged with manslaughter.
During trial, a minor we shall call Sera, narrated that in 2015, her family shifted to Lusaka’s Garden-Luangwa at Mr Kalaba’s residence.
She said her family lived at the servant’s quarter while the Kalabas lived 10 metres away in the main house, where she frequented to play with his daughter, Mapalo (pseudonym).
ZDM