Unending family murders in Kenya leave children picking the pieces

A mother in the grave, a father facing life imprisonment for her death and a future as bleak as a winter’s day. This is the painful reality facing five children in KK Muthangene village in Meru County.

The three boys aged three months, eight and 15; and two girls -- a 13-year-old and a five-year-old, were placed in the care of their 65-year-old grandmother after their mother was killed and their father arrested for the murder.

When marriages fail, children bear the brunt and the emotional and psychological scars, sometimes for life. In Meru and Kirinyaga counties, several of these incidents were reported in 2021, with two of them standing out.

About 120 kilometres south, in Kutus, Kirinyaga County, four children were killed in their sleep in a bizarre incident. 

The agent of death in this case was the very person meant to protect the family. Paul Murage Njuki, 35, is said to have turned on his family between November 27 and November 29, hacking them to death while they slept. The children were aged between 13 and one.

His wife Millicent Muthoni, 38, was also a victim in the homicides whose motive remains a mystery.

Mr Njuki is said to have used a slasher and an axe in the bloodbath that went unnoticed for more than 36 hours.

The assailant surrendered to Kianyaga Police Station.

Quarrel after drinking spree

In the Meru incident, it all started when the man aged 34, and the woman aged 37, went out on a drinking spree but quarreled on their way home on August 3. The woman was battered to death.

The man, who is now in police custody, is reported to have gone to the local chief to seek a burial permit at midnight, claiming his wife had died after taking poison.

He walked to his house, about 300 metres away, woke up his eldest son, and ordered him to help him dispose of the body in their farm.

The casual labourer carried the body on his back as he staggered through a maize plantation, while his son shone the way for him using a torch. When they arrived home, he laid the body on the matrimonial bed.

He then walked to the neighbour’s home and told them his wife had died by suicide and he wanted a permit to bury her.

A neighbour said they doubted his story since they had heard the couple fighting for close to two hours and suspected that he might have killed her.

She volunteered to call the area chief so that he could report the death as he requested.

When the administrator and other villagers inspected the blood-soaked body, they suspected the woman had been killed.

“The chief tricked him that it was good they report to the police that his wife had committed suicide ... When they arrived at the police station, he was arrested,” the neighbour recalled.

Village elder John Kigwanthi said the man had placed two bottles of a common herbicide nearby so as to deceive residents and police to believe his suicide narrative.

“When scene of crime officers tore her blouse at the back, they saw marks of horrifying assault. There were horrendous bites on her back and thighs,” he said.

Police also recovered a wooden plank thought to be the murder weapon and photographed the drag marks left on the 300-metre trail and the blood-soaked clothes on the bed.

Residents revealed that they were aware that the couple fought regularly, but regretted that they did not offer any help that night.