Tapiwa Furusa to appear in court charged with murder of Leigh-Anne Mahachi at her home on Tuesday
A Zimbabwean mortgage broker has been charged with stabbing to death a 22-year-old former colleague in what police described as a “targeted attack”.
Leigh-Anne Mahachi was found with multiple stab wounds at her home in Sheffield on Tuesday morning but died later in hospital.
A 37-year-old man, Tapiwa Furusa, was charged on Wednesday night with murder.
Furusa, who was living in Colchester at the time of the alleged murder, is to appear at Sheffield magistrates court on Thursday morning.
Furusa is believed to have been a company director with Leigh-Anne of a cleaning firm based in Colchester.
He described himself as a mortgage broker in the Companies House documentation for his company, Furm Cleaning Services, which was dissolved in February.
Tributes have been paid to Leigh-Anne, who was described by neighbours a a “nice young girl, so lovely and beautiful”.
Neighbour Lindsey Grayson, 30, said she has organised a collection along with another neighbour to buy the flowers for the family.
She told the Sheffield Star: “You can’t make it any better, but we want to let the family know that we are not a community who are going to turn our backs on them. We have organised the collection to show them we are thinking of them.
“Leigh-Anne was such a nice young girl, so lovely and beautiful. She always smiled and spoke to me.”
Leigh-Anne is believed to have lived in the house with her mother, Cecillia, and brother, Taf, for about three and a half years.
Neighbours said they saw Leigh-Anne’s mother “hysterical” in the street following the stabbing. “I can’t stop thinking about how Leigh-Anne must have felt, or what her mum must be going through now. It’s heartbreaking,” said Grayson.
The investigating officer DI Steve Ashmore said before the arrest: “This is an extremely distressing incident and the victim’s family is currently being supported by specially trained officers.
“We are treating this as a targeted attack and I can reassure members of the public that we have a large number of resources at the scene and are pursuing a number of lines of inquiry to establish the full circumstances.”
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