A soldier is facing life in jail for stabbing his ex-girlfriend more than 20 times after she left him for a new man.
Josphat Mutekedza, 36, launched the frenzied attack after ‘laying in wait’ and ‘ambushing’ his former partner Miriam Nyuatzema at her home in Rochdale .
Mutekedza greeted her and Jacob Chigombe at the front door threatening them with an air pistol which looked like a handgun.
He then chased the pair and began violently stabbing Miss Nyuatzema, 37, dozens of times in the head, face and chest leaving her collapsed in a neighbour’s garden.
However as two neighbours rushed to help her he threatened them with the gun and continued his “sustained and brutal” attack by hitting her with a metal bar, throwing a coffee table at her and kicking her as she lay dying on the ground, a court heard.
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The trial at Bolton Crown Court heard how Mutekedza is originally from Zimbabwae but has been in the UK for more than 10 years and was a private in the Territorial Army.
A picture taken from his Facebook page shows him in army uniform brandishing a large knife.
Mutekedza, of Eastbourne, Sussex, admitted killing care home nurse Miriam, but denied murder, and claimed that he was acting in self-defence.
However earlier on July 28 last year he had visited the care home in Oldham where she worked.
Later told Nyuatzema’s friend over the phone he was on his way to catch a train to Liverpool but by then he had already broken into her home on Shawclough Way, Rochdale, and a judge said it was a “deliberate lie intended to ensure Miriam did not worry about returning to her home.”
He also said he may well have tried to kill Mr Chigombe had he been able to find and catch him.
The Recorder of Bolton, Judge Timothy Clayson said: “This was a sustained and brutal attack planned by you as you waited in Miriam’s house and you ambushed her and Jacob Chigombe.
“I find in doing what you did to Miriam you plainly intended to kill her and you had formed that intention, at the latest after she rebuffed you, after you begged her to give you another chance when you spoke to her over the phone during your taxi journey to her home.
“You twice phoned the police during this incident and you made fully clear that your reason launching this attack was that in your view Miriam had been cheating on you and was sleeping with another man.
“Those statements by you were, in my view, the simple truth behind this case.”
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Despite having taken the long kitchen knife which he used in the attack from a drawer in Miriam’s house, the judge said the fact the level of planning and the fact he took it outside was akin to him having taken it to the scene himself in the eyes of the law and thereby attracting a much higher sentence.
He added: “The seriousness of this offence is aggravated by the fact that you also had an air pistol in your possession.
“As to mitigation the only point of note is your previous lack of convictions and your service in Her Majesty’s forces.”
He was jailed for life with a minimum term of 26 years including the time he’s already spent on remand.
He was also handed a concurrent 30 month for possession of the handgun.
