A 38-year-old woman is in Police custody in Mchinji for allegedly killed her three children aged between 11 and 5 at her farm in Manthalu village in T/A Mavwere in the district.

The incident happened on Wednesday January 13, 2016, barely two days after a businessman in Blantyre shot to death his wife and stepson before taking his own life.

The woman Violet Tilire Phiri killed her children Chisomo,11, Limbani, 9, and Richard Mwale 5 by knocking them with a hoe handle and hacked them with a hoe.

A brother to the woman Charles Phiri told Mana that the woman has a history of mental illness and she could at at times show aggressive behaviour by throwing her kids especially when they were young on the ground but would later care for them very well.

“The kids have been staying with our mother (their grandmother) but on Wednesday Violet took the kids to the farm where one by one she knocked them on the head and hacked them and then carried one of the children to her house and covered her with a cloth,” He said.

Phiri said she covered the other two children with leaves and left them at the farm.

In an interview at Mchinji Police Violet who looked deranged and shabby said she hacked the children because she has an illness and that in her own words ‘ndimagwa’.

She told Mana the children did not ran away when she knocked them with a hoe, and died after wards.

Violet who had blood stains on her clothes narrated how she killed the three boys saying she had to do the ‘deed’.

Mchinji police spokesperson Moses Nyirenda they are still investigating the issue before taking Violet to Mchinji Hopsital for further medical examination.

The bodies of the three children are being kept at Mchinji District Hospital mortuary.