From right: Former Riruta Ward Rep Samuel Ndung'u, Joyce Njambi and Wilson Mwangi at the Kiambu High Court on March 6, 2018. They were charged with killing Lucy Njambi.
In a hushed court, Justice Joel Ngugi on Friday sentenced former Riruta Ward Rep Samuel Ndung’u and his co-accused Wilson Mwangi and Joyce Njambi to a total of 90 years in jail. Each got 30 years.
Ndung’u, estranged husband to the late Lucy Njambi had hired Mwangi and Joyce Njambi to kill his wife who was then aged 24 after they had separated over marital problems.
The accused looked vulnerable and reflective when they appeared before Kiambu High Court for sentencing barely two weeks after the court read the judgment to them that placed them at the centre of the murder of Ms Njambi.
It was the end of a case that has been ongoing since 2018 and in sentencing them, the Judge said the accused deserved the ruthlessness they used when they murdered Ms Njambi.
“It is a significant aggregating factor that the accused person offending was an extreme act of violence and femicide carried out in a most brutish and sadistic way. The circumstances here call for a very stiff sentence to match the ruthlessness of the murder and its effects on the victims and society. I hereby sentence each of the three accused persons to 30 years imprisonment. By dint of section 333 subsection 2 of Criminal Procedure Code, the sentence period shall run from 5th April 2024 since that is the date the accused were placed in custody,’’ Justice Ngugi pronounced.
The court termed Ndung’u a jealous and temperamental person who financed the death of his wife without remorse and with a clear intention of killing.
Njambi was lured through a cheque by her estranged husband who later surrendered her to the killers.
The prosecution told the court she was first sexually assaulted by one of the accused and one other suspect who has never been arrested and later, her body doused with sulphuric acid in Kiambu, along Kamiti road on January 26, 2018.
Shoddy work
However, Ms Njambi’s killers did a shoddy work when they thought they had effectively neutralised her only for her to crawl for help, groaning in pain. A Good Samaritan rescued and rushed her to Kiambu Level 5 Hospital and later Kenyatta National Hospital where she narrated to detectives, doctors and family what had transpired before she died.
Lucy Njambi. She succumbed to injuries on January 26, 2018 at the Kenyatta National Hospital.
How phone data nailed trio
Phone data conversation and CCTV cameras introduced into evidence played a key role in prosecuting the trio.
They show how the three murder suspects and another executed the killing, including how the husband remitted via M-Pesa to a dealer to procure the sulphuric acid used in the murder.
Investigating officer Joseph Mutie had took the court through the murder plot starting at Homeland Inn Restaurant along Thika Road where the former Ward Rep is captured on the CCTV entering and leaving together with his co-accused a few days before Ms Njambi was murdered.
Police statements and evidence presented before the court confirmed Ndung’u and Njambi living as husband and wife in Lavington, Nairobi, until they separated and Njambi moved to Thindigua, in Kiambu County to live with her househelp and her son.
The falling out
Jealous that his separated wife was seeing another man, the prosecution adduced evidence of Ndung’u relocating to Thindigua to spy on her wife by renting an apartment at Morning Star Court house number A16 on the 3rd floor on December 28th, 2017.
“Samuel Ndung’u subsequently relocated to Thindigua, Kiambu and rented an apartment … where he could closely monitor Ms Njambi’s affairs. This was just one week after Lucy had rented hers within the said locality,” evidence submitted in court shows.
The court was also told that during that period, Mr Ndung’u met and befriended one Joyce Njambi Mungai. They would meet and share drinks at Kihunguro Shell Petrol Station and Kamakis Restaurant where they were being driven by the Ndung’u’s driver Francis Mumira using Toyota Harrier registration KBY 767S.
On several occasions prior to the murder, Mr Ndung’u and his co-accused are said to have visited the two entertainment joints and then relocated to Homeland Restaurant along Thika Road where phone records and CCTV captured their movements and communication.
A data expert from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) Jonathan Limo testified how he extracted phone data between January 1, 2018 to the 26th for ten numbers showing Ndung’u in constant communication with the other suspects.
On the 22nd day of January, 2018, at 11am, Benjamin Mburu, a laboratory technician at Potters House in Runda received a call from Joyce Njambi inquiring about sulphuric acid claiming she was in dire need of it to wash scrap metal. He directed her to go and buy it at Science Lab along Accra Road, Nairobi.
Mr Mburu would later call Mr Ndung’u, to confirm that he had facilitated the purchase of sulphuric acid.
Condemned’s final meal
On January 23, 2018, one day before Ms Njambi was murdered, Mburu received an M-Pesa amount of Sh1,500 from Ndung’u’s official mobile number, whose transaction and call logs detectives adduced in court.
On 24th January, 2018, Samuel Ndung’u enticed Ms Njambi with a cheque after visiting her in a rented commercial shop where she was setting up a salon.
Later Ndung’u and Njambi were driven to Kawangware and later to Homeland Inn where they met two men only identified by their aliases Wilson Mwangi alias ‘mwash’ and ‘Njugush’ the third suspect in the murder who has never been arrested.
That night, the same day Ms Njambi was murdered, Ndung’u had hired a motor vehicle registration number KBH 945N, a silver-coloured Toyota Fielder from businessman Mark Muthii Mbogo of Breeze Travellers in Riruta, Nairobi, for Sh3,000 per day at around 7.40 pm.
He was to return it on January, 25 2018.
Later, Joyce Njambi Mungai, ‘Mwash’ and ‘Njugush’ boarded the hired vehicle and drove to Quick Mart supermarket where Njambi’s husband bought packed lunch and proceeded to Njambi’s rental apartment.
Police suspect the food must have been laced with something to make it easy to abduct her.
“He (Samuel Ndung’u) called Ms Njambi who walked out of her room to the car, picked up the lunch box and sat in the co-driver seat while chatting to Samuel in the driver’s seat. She was unaware of Joyce Njambi sitting in the back,” a detective said.
As they left, ‘Mwash’ and ‘Njugush’ who were in constant communication with Ndung’u emerged and forced Ms Njambi into another vehicle.
Detectives said the incident was witnessed by the tenant and caretaker who happened to be outside their houses.
Ms Njambi is said to have been driven to Sasini Coffee Estate where she was removed from the vehicle and taken to coffee bushes, undressed, doused in the corrosive substance (sulfuric acid) all over her body and left to die after being raped.
Yesterday, when the trio was asked if they had anything to say in mitigation after the sentencing, Mr Ndung’u said he was asthmatic, suffers high blood pressure and has the child left behind by his late wife.
Ms Njambi said she has a young family and is unmarried and that there would be no one to take care of her children upon being jailed. Mwangi asked the court for a lenient sentencing.
None owned up to the killing and they have 14 days to appeal the sentencing.
