Lawrence Magondu murderer who got pregnant to escape death sentence set free

He thought they were genuine customers. Even as he boarded their vehicle to show them the precincts of Kitengela neighbourhood on the day he was killed, the chit-chat, the laughter, the banter hid their roguish intentions.

Lawrence Magondu, a Nairobi land dealer with connections to land sharks, had for 20 days entertained the steely-eyed killers, taken them to his Buruburu home, his office, and showed them the isolated place where they would end his life. Not once, but twice.

When she was released from prison last week, under the act of mercy, Anna Ngonyo did not hit the headlines the way she did as police hunted suspects of Magondu’s high-profile murder on February 4, 2000.

The Magondu case was not only high-profile after police arrested former Commissioner of Lands Wilson Gachanja and his wife Elizabeth Gitiri but because of the deceit. The unbridled desire to kill.

Also arrested was Gitiri’s half-brother Francis Muruatetu, a convicted drug dealer whose famous fight for liberty would lead to the now famous Supreme Court ruling, the Muruatetu Decision, on the constitutionality of the death penalty.

Read: Quash my death penalty, wife of top ex-lands official pleads

The Magondu case was one of the first in which the police used mobile phone technology to link suspects to crimes. By then, cellphone owners were unaware that the service providers kept call records, which could be used in court as evidence.

They had previously used the technology to trace the kidnapped billionaire Abdul Karim Popat as well as police killer Daniel Kiptum Cheruiyot.

Anna Ngonyo became the face of the Magondu case and in her style. She had tried to use unorthodox means to escape the death penalty. Although she had been in custody since February 2000, the court was surprised when it was informed that Ngonyo was 36 weeks pregnant.

Justice Msagha Mbogholi was taken aback for he was about to convict her.

“The innocent life in your womb has saved your day,” said Justice Mbogholi, while ordering the Registrar of the High Court, William Ouko, and Commissioner of Prisons to investigate under what circumstances a remandee got pregnant.

It was an intriguing search, for there was no complainant. More so, no law had been broken apart from the mischievous bid to escape the noose. It would have awakened discussions on the place of conjugal rights among remandees, as the Ngonyo case illustrated.

Wilson Thiribu

It had emerged that Wilson Thiribu, one of the accused in Magondu's murder, had a previous relationship with Ngonyo, and they had a son.

Thiribu was a former Administration Police inspector who had served time in Kamiti Maximum Security Prison for drug trafficking. In essence, he was well-known by the wardens. It was said that Thiribu could have schemed to save his partner from the hangman, and that revealed a legal loophole: a capital remandee can escape the death sentence by getting pregnant before she is convicted.

Although the High Court ordered the prison's boss to determine the circumstances under which Ngonyo became pregnant, that intrusion into a remandee's privacy had no precedent. Then High Court Registrar William Ouko had told the media that the investigation had reached a dead end since nobody was volunteering any information.

As Ouko put it, "Thiribu admits that Ngonyo is his wife, but he is not saying anything about how she became pregnant while in custody…and the woman is also not talking."

The investigating officers were left speculating that Ngonyo possibly got pregnant in the basement of the High Court building, where they were kept together before being taken to Court. Even though male and female co-accused are usually brought to court in different vehicles, they were, in those days, put together in holding cells before they were taken before a judge.

"We could not establish where the loophole is, but we suspect they must have connived to use the basement cells while other people were giving them protection," said Ouko.

Read: How Muruatetu, a murderer, became the face of Supreme Court ruling

As it turned out, Ngonyo was not the face of innocence despite her pretty looks. She used to lure Magondu out of Nairobi by posing as a Swiss-based developer interested in buying some land in Kitengela. The motive was a bit convoluted and was packed with greed. It emerged during the trial that there was an intention to extort money from Lands Commissioner Wilson Gachanja. Although he was set free for lack of evidence, the court had been told that Gachanja had paid Sh4.9 million to the killers. According to Rose Njoki, the money was given to her brother Muruatetu. It was later claimed in court that Gachanja was tricked into believing that Magondu, the land dealer, wanted him dead. The mastermind was Muruatetu – the former District Officer turned drug dealer. In his statement to the police, Thiribu said he was recruited by Muruatetu – Gachanja's brother-in-law – to issue the pseudo-death threats to Gachanja through Muruatetu's sister, Njoki. Thiribu had introduced himself to Njoki as "Maji Moto" and relayed the message that he had been hired to eliminate Gachanja by Magondu.

Frightened, the court heard, the Gachanjas agreed to pay "Maji Moto" to eliminate Magondu. The money was allegedly paid by Gachanja's wife – who was later released on appeal. The Court of Appeal judges said they could not find "any evidence to show she knew that whatever money she gave out, if she gave out any, was to facilitate the murder of the deceased." They argued that Njoki used to draw money from the Gachanjas’ joint account at HFCK, Kenyatta branch, and it was hard to connect any withdrawal with the murder. "The benefit of doubt we entertain must be given to the first appellant," the Court of Appeal Judges later ruled.

From court records, we know that Thiribu, alias "Maji Moto", introduced his partner, Ngonyo, into the scheme. By posing as the buyer, Ngonyo was the person to lure Magondu out of Nairobi to the thickets of Kitengela. Magondu, all along, had thought that Ngonyo and Thiribu were serious buyers and had decided to show them the Kitengela plot. Unknown to him, Ngonyo was a hawker living in Umoja and was the person who was to recruit the killers from Kibera and Kayole.

On the fateful day, February 4, 2000, Magondu was called by Muruatetu and asked to proceed to Kitengela to finalise the deal with Ngonyo and Thiribu. He went there with his driver, Harrison King’ori. The transaction was rushed since Ngonyo was about to leave for Switzerland. More so, she wanted to issue the banker's cheque of Sh1.4 million on the same day. Magondu quickly fell into the trap.

As Magondu and his driver waited at the Kitengela plot, they were not surprised that Ngonyo had arrived with three shabbily dressed men identified as David Njuguna, Stephen Kamau and Stephen Njoki, alias 'Blackie’. They were introduced as "workers".

As King’ori later told the court, Thiribu opened the boot of his car and asked Magondu if the barbed wire there was appropriate for fencing. He noticed some iron bars, two crowbars and a new panga. After that, Magondu, Ngonyo, and Thiribu started moving towards the nearby tarmac road on foot, and King’ori, on Magondu's request, followed them. Was Magondu frightened? Nobody knows. They were shown the beacons, the water points, and the electricity service points. Satisfied, they went back to the vehicles. The problem was how to separate King’ori from his boss.

Thiribu suggested they needed to see the vicinity and asked Magondu to ride in their car. He agreed. The other three shabbily dressed men followed in the car driven by King’ori and were asked by Magondu to head to Maasai Ostrich Farm. While there, Magondu, Thiribu and Ngonyo went to the restaurant and bought some water. Thiribu told King’ori to drive behind them as they started the two cars. He did so. But on reaching the late George Saitoti's home, King'ori went straight to the main road since he did not have enough fuel. He had, apparently, without knowledge, separated the hired killers from Magondu.

After a short while, Magondu, Ngonyo and Thiribu returned to the plot. Thiribu now suggested that Magondu's driver should go to Tarino Butchery and order some lunch of roast and fried meat.

As he left, he was joined by the two hired killers, Stephen Kamau and "Blackie”. After ordering meat, King’ori noticed that Blackie was not there. He was told that Thiribu had called him.

King’ori told the court that he saw Blackie running towards Thiribu's vehicle, about 11 metres away. They waited in the car outside Tarino Butchery. Unknown to King’ori, that was the time Magondu was killed.

After a 20-minute wait, the murderers came for him and parked far from Tarino Butchery. Blackie told King’ori that Magondu had directed that they follow him to Nairobi, where he was going to complete the transaction relating to the plot.

"What about the lunch?" King’ori naively asked. Blackie said he had heard them say they would return later for lunch.

Nairobi National Park

King’ori accelerated to catch up with his boss and inform him that the car was running low on fuel. On Old Mombasa Road, heading towards Nairobi, he caught up with the vehicle and was surprised that Magondu was not there. He asked Blackie, who remarked that Magondu was "sleeping in the back seat”. He drove faster and checked the back seat. His boss was not there. At that point, he was carjacked and asked to follow Ngonyo and Thiribu, who were now driving towards the Nairobi National Park. In a secluded place, the group beat him and left him for dead. King’ori was conscious and pretended to have died. They then pushed him into Magondu's vehicle, closed it and drove off. Shortly after that, King’ori arose. His hands were still tied. He walked to a nearby bus stage – near Mlolongo – and got assistance from two members of the public who untied his hands and drove him to a police station.

He would become the star witness in Ngonyo's case. Thiribu and Ngonyo would conspire once more to save her from the hangman. As Prisons spokesman John Odongo told the media then, "Ngonyo could have conceived during one of her court appearances. When we take them to court, we hand them over to the police, and this could have happened during that time…the only person who can say the truth is the convict herself."

While Gachanja’s wife managed to have her sentence quashed later, it was Muruatetu – who was not at the scene of the crime – who lodged a spirited attempt to have the courts determine the legality of the death penalty. He argued in Court that the death penalty was unconstitutional and that a legal statute was overriding the Constitution and did not give room to judicial discretion.

Ngonyo has been set free. She may have learned some lessons. Rest in Peace, Magondu.

[email protected] @johnkamau1