Teacher who killed husband has sentence reduced

A teacher who was found guilty of killing her husband has had her death sentence reduced after an appeal.

Jane Nambuye Manyonge was sent to the hangman on May 30, 2017 by Justice Stella Mutuku, who found her guilty of killing her husband Francis Mulumeti at their home in Riruta Dagoretti in 2013.

Mulumeti worked with the Ministry of Devolution at the time of his death while Manyonge was a teacher at Le Pic School in Dagoretti.

While reducing the sentence, the Court of Appeal used a recent legal jurisprudence which states that it is not compulsory for a convict to be handed the mandatory sentence provided for in law.

The new jurisprudence states that each case should be considered on its own circumstances.

"We deem it fit to consider the circumstances of this case. We observe that the appellant was a first offender and the trial judge stated that she had no discretion to vary the death penalty.

“In keeping with the recent jurisprudence, we hereby set aside the death sentence imposed on the appellant," said justices Mohammed Warsame, Asike Makhandia and Jamila Mohammed.

Throughout the trial the 51-year-old teacher denied killing her husband but the judges noted that the circumstantial evidence pointed towards her.

This is because the victim and the convict were the only people in their house in the fateful evening before the man was found dead in the house.

Further, there were blood stains all over the house and a knife was found in the house with blood stains.

The court also considered the teacher's contradictory statements on various issues for instances, when asked by the gateman Jeremiah Asuku what had happened to her husband, she told him that he had fallen on a stool and hurt himself.

She later reported to police that her husband had complained of chest pains after they had eaten supper.

At the police station she admitted that they had a difficult relationship because he used to drink heavily.