The family of a well-known soccer star and educator, who was found hanging under mysterious circumstances last week in his outside kitchen, believes he was killed somewhere and hanged at his home to fake the suicide.

Simon “Mkhabela,” as he was affectionately known during his soccer days, died under mysterious circumstances after disappearing from a bottle store where he was drinking with close family members at a nearby village last week.

Mudziwa (37) of Dzwerani is alleged to have left home two days before the incident, only to be found dead in his outside kitchen on the third day of his absence. His elder brother, Reuben, did not mince his words when he narrated the incident to Mirror at the weekend. “My brother was murdered somewhere and brought here to make it look like a suicide. We are not fools. Even a layman can see that his body was hanged here. How could he hang himself while his feet were touching down and he was in a squatting position? This is ridiculous,” he said.

Mudziwa said his brother’s body was smeared with oil, which suggests that he was killed by somebody who had handled oil. It also showed there was a struggle before he was killed. “My brother struggled before he was killed. Even the rope he used to kill himself was not known at home,” he said. The grieving Mudziwa said he failed to understand why anyone would want his brother dead. “He was a people’s man who was loved by everybody in the village. If he owed anything, they should have told us rather than killed him,” he said.

The dead man’s wife, Tshilidzi Mugeri, was visibly grief-stricken. “I do not know what to do. We are left on our own with the kids; a void has been left in us,” she said. Mugeri said she failed to understand why people would kill her husband in such a barbaric way. “The incident has left the children very traumatized, and the scars will not heal easily,” said the sad wife. “We have accepted that he is gone forever, but we will not forget what happened and we just wish that whoever did it should be found and rot in jail,” she said.

Mudziwa was a very well-known soccer star in his days and played for clubs like Muziafera Blue Eagles, Dzwerani United Brothers, Price Busters United, Rabali Black Pool, Mapate Silver Stars and Black Leopards. He was also an educator at Manzere Primary School at Shayndima. He is survived by his wife and three children and was buried last weekend.