By Desire Tshuma
CHITUNGWIZA — She carried him for nine months. She raised him, fed him, watched him grow from a boy into a man of 44. And on 5 November 2026, in a house in Unit L, Chitungwiza, that life ended in the most unthinkable way, allegedly at the hands of her own son.
Rosemary Luwaca was 72 years old. She was a mother. She was a grandmother. She was the woman who should have been safe in her own home, in her old age, surrounded by the family she built. Instead, police say, she died after being struck twice on the head with a six-pound hammer, following a domestic dispute.
The suspect police are now hunting is her son, Bob Nobert Luwaca, 44.
According to the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Luwaca allegedly struck his mother twice on the head with the hammer before fleeing the scene. The weapon believed to have been used in the murder was recovered at the scene, left behind like a silent witness to a horror no family should ever have to live through.
Think about that for a moment. A six-pound hammer is not a weapon you pick up by accident. It is heavy. It is meant for breaking concrete, for building, for work. To lift it against your own mother, to bring it down once, and then to bring it down again, is an act that has left an entire neighbourhood struggling to understand how a domestic dispute could turn into a killing.
Neighbours in Unit L say the house that once echoed with the ordinary sounds of family life, cooking, conversation, arguments that should have ended in forgiveness, is now a crime scene. It is now a place of tears, of whispered prayers, of a family trying to come to terms with the fact that the person they trusted most is the person accused of taking their mother away.
Rosemary Luwaca will not see another birthday. She will not sit with her grandchildren and tell them stories of her youth. She will not grow old in peace. Her life was cut short, allegedly, by the very child she brought into this world, the child she must have held in her arms when he cried, the child she must have protected when the world was cruel to him.
That is the heartbreak of this story. It is not just a murder statistic. It is a mother killed by her son. It is a family broken in a way that can never be fully repaired. It is a community forced to ask itself painful questions about anger, about domestic disputes, about how many warnings were missed, about how many times a mother may have forgiven, endured, and prayed that tomorrow would be better.
Police say the investigation is continuing, and fresh reports on the incident have already had to correct early confusion over the weapon used, confirming it was a hammer and not an axe, as some early accounts suggested. The suspect remains at large, with his whereabouts still unknown as police continue their search.
This is not an isolated pain. In recent days, Zimbabwe has been rocked by other family killings that have left communities reeling, including a horror in Chihota where a man allegedly killed his 74-year-old mother and a 3-year-old relative after a dispute, before fleeing. Each case is different. Each family is different. But the pattern is the same, and it is terrifying: the home, which should be the safest place of all, becoming the place where a life ends.
The Zimbabwe Republic Police is now appealing to members of the public for information which may assist in the arrest of Bob Nobert Luwaca. Anyone with information is urged to report to any nearest police station.
If you know where he is, if you have seen him, if you heard anything on that day in Unit L, do not stay silent. Silence will not bring Rosemary back. But speaking up may bring justice for her, and it may prevent another mother from suffering the same fate.
Rosemary Luwaca was 72. She deserved to die in peace, surrounded by love, not in fear, allegedly at the hands of her own son. She deserved better. Her family deserves answers. Her community deserves justice.