How fight between husband and son over Sh50 alcohol widowed me
John Kamau who was allegedly killed by the son on December 17, 2022 at Gikandu village in Murang'a County.
What you need to know:
- Mary Nyambura says her husband sustained the son in alcohol habits and saw to it the son's mind went to the dogs as he became a mental case.
- Bitter widow faults her deceased husband for failure to make family decisions that promoted positive character development for their children.
Mary Nyambura, 67, had tried her best unsuccessfully, to deter her husband, John Kamau, of taking their son his drinking escapades.
"I was strongly opposed to the habit of my husband financing our son's drinking habit. He thought he was doing the right thing, saying he needed someone he could trust besides him while drinking. They would accompany each other to bars and also drink at home," Ms Nyambura told Nation at her Gikandu village home in Kiharu Constituency.
She says the habit had persisted for about a decade "until on December 17, 2022, when the two argued over a Sh50 illicit brew and my son known as Duncan Chege, then aged 38 years, murdered my husband who was 68 then."
She says her husband sustained the son in alcohol habits and saw to it the son's mind went to the dogs as he became a mental case in addiction and the price she paid for opposing that unholy alliance.
As a result, the son got married to alcohol, his father being the chief priest in that marriage.
Ms Nyambura says she is bitter because her husband as a professional teacher was supposed to make family decisions that promoted positive character development for their children.
"I do not know what they put in these brews because it appeared that potent stuff unified my husband and son in a satanic alliance that beats common sense," she laments.
For a long time, Gikandu village has remained synonymous with high levels of alcoholism especially owing to low literacy levels, high jobless rate as well as many working in quarries to make ends meet.
Ms Nyambura said the culture of alcoholism that knows no ringer or decency has now widowed her.
"If my husband had applied morals and decency, he would not have found himself in the deadly confrontation that left him murdered by his drinking mate who also doubled as his son."
Narrating the events that transformed her into a widow, she says his son woke up around 10am.
"Instead of taking tea, he would ask for alcohol and if there was none in the house, his father would give him money to go and buy from nearby bars that remain open even outside legal hours," she said.
The son asked for alcohol from his father and there was none.
"He asked for Sh50 to go and buy alcohol from nearby bars and the father said he had no cash but would get some by midday. Mr Chege left his father and went to his hut about 10 metres from his parent's main house," Ms Nyambura recounts.
The son then sat on a hewn stone without talking to anyone, even after his father teased him, asking whether he felt sick.
"He looked disturbed and in deep thought. He was uttering some incomprehensible words. Truth be said, my son's mind had for the past five years gone south. Besides taking alcohol, he was also into drugs," she said.
Since she had learned to ignore the two's love for alcohol, she did not bother to inform her son that his father was about to go to Murang'a town to withdraw some cash from his retirement benefits account.
"Faced with their unholy alliance and knowing too well both were people dear to me, I had surrendered their fate to my God and my prayer was that he changed them and made them reform," she says.
In that adopted pacifying comfort, she says, she went to attend to the family cows some about 40 metres from where father and son were bantering about alcohol.
"Christmas was approaching but we ended up welcoming tears," she laments.
Ms Nyambura says she had been feeding the cows for about five minutes when she heard a commotion.
"I rushed to the scene and on my way, I heard some agonised groans. There was a shout and I hastened my steps to find my son holding a crowbar astride his father who was bleeding profusely from a head injury," she said.
She says she knelt and held her husband who whispered to her: "My dear it is over...Tell him I forgive him but he should not murder anyone else... my blood should be the last for him to spill... I leave in peace."
With those words, Mr Kamau breathed his last. He was pronounced dead at the Murang'a Level Five hospital where he was delivered 30 minutes later.
In the meantime, irate members of the public pursued the son and caught up with him.
"I was the first to get hold of him and he was my younger brother. I was seething with anger but at the same time confused since he had attacked our father. I felt no mercy for him and I was ready to see my fellow villagers lynch him. The police arrived and arrested him," Mr Francis Gacuca said.
At the Murang'a Law Courts, Mr Chege was on January 12, 2023, charged with murder but did not take a plea since a psychiatric report indicated that he was a mental case.
"Since then, he has been admitted to Mathari Hospital. My son was doing fine in life to the point he had trained as a motor vehicle mechanic and was working for his livelihood until his father made him his drinking partner," Ms Nyambura said.
"What I will never understand is why he murdered his father who was his best friend... It was a strange possession."
Asked whether she visits his son in the hospital, she responded that she has yet to.
"The damage could have been mitigated. I did all could to talk to my husband and to my son. I tried my level best to pray for them too. I had even developed blood pressure worrying about them. Let me heal in peace. If he ever comes back here, I will welcome him hoping that he will not murder me too," she said.
She said the family does not have a common ground regarding their ailing brother.
"I can only say that I will live a day as it comes since what is important is the present... the past is gone and I cannot read into the future."
Ms Nyambura says the incident made her hate alcohol.
"I get very irritated to see both the national and county governments playing a game of musical chairs with this culture of death instead of fighting it."
