Family tragedy as woman kills her three children, takes own life

An act of compassion by a military officer, perhaps fuelled by the desire to keep his family glued together, ended tragically after his spouse poisoned their three children and later died by suicide.

A chronology of events documented by the police pointed to a troubled marriage, with the red flags in the relationship swept under the carpet.

Last year, Mollen Akinyi, 32, is said to have poisoned the children and also took toxin but were all saved in the nick of time.

But a video call she made to her husband led to her being picked up by the police, questioned and later arraigned, before intervention early this year.

The children were taken to a safe house within Gilgil but were released following the demand by their father, who later withdrew the case in court.

The husband, according to police investigators, travelled back into the country from his Somalia base, pardoned his wife and removed the children from the safe custody.

“He (the officer) was angered by the move to keep the children in the safe house as he insisted that they stay with their mother before he returned to the mission in Somalia,” said an officer at the heart of the earlier probe.

During the video call, the woman threatened to kill the children, with the Army man seeking the intervention of his sister.

But on Friday, the troubled woman, according to her neighbours, finally executed her mission by poisoning the children, an act that left locals in the Teachers B Estate shell-shocked.

“The incident is heart wrenching…many of the people who knew her are astonished,” said Mr Stephen Gitau.

A suicide note she left behind gave some of the reasons that led to ending of her life and that of the children.

According to the Gilgil sub-county deputy police commander Henry Mbogo, the mother of three was "frustrated" by her husband’s monthly obligation of sending her Sh18,000 as per their agreement.

“In the suicide note, she indicated that the husband had reduced the initial amount to a ‘paltry’ Sh10,000 which, according to her, was barely enough to cater for the family needs,” he told the Nation.

In her last note, she also accused the spouse of infidelity, linking it to the reduction of cash that he was now receiving.

Police had to force open the door which was secured from the inside and later took the bodies to the Gilgil sub-county hospital mortuary.