How crime made me a widow at only 18

Not a single day passes without Caroline Awino wishing she had known earlier what her husband did for a living.

At only 18, is a widow following the lynching of her husband Joseph Maina in Nakuru last October.

There were days her husband would come home in Bondeni, Nakuru County, with electronics. On other days, he brought cash and other goods.

She recalls a night when Maina -- who was 21 when he died -- left the house at night and told her that his best friend had been involved in an accident and needed to be taken to the hospital. When he returned home at 3am, he had an assortment of electronics and three smartphones.

Awino asked where the items were from, but her husband told her they belonged to his friend. She was shocked, however, when in the morning, he sold the electronics, saying his friend needed the money for medication. He gave her Sh10,000, she recalls.

Her life took a tragic turn one day in October 2021, when she received a call from her husband’s phone. The caller told her that her husband had been killed by a mob after he robbed and stabbed someone at Kwa Rhonda estate.

Had dinner together

“I recall the events of the night. We had dinner together at 8pm before we went to bed. Later, he woke up, took his jacket and left. I was in bed and I went back to sleep, only to be woken up by the call,” says Awino.

The mother of one was chilled to the bone, as her suspicions that her husband had been up to no good all along were confirmed.

They had been married for only one year, but she recalled all the times she had been suspicious of Maina’s activities and realised that he had been a robber. He was not out drinking with friends or helping a friend in distress.

Maina’s body, according to the caller, had been picked by police and taken to the Nakuru city mortuary.

“I went to the mortuary the next day and saw the badly wounded body, and confirmed that he was the one. I still feel the pain and the images keep replaying in my mind,” she tells the Nation.

Shield his character

To this day, Awino says, his friends continue to shield his character. They insist that he had gone to collect his debt from someone when he was lynched by the mob after he stabbed the man.

“I would hear none of that. I regret every day of my life. I loved my husband and he loved me and our son, but I feel I did not play my part as a wife. I wished he could have told me what was going through his mind that night. I could have offered some help,” Awino says.

“I was used to him leaving and returning by 5am. The day he was killed, I was the one to go to where his badly crushed body was,” she says.

Her pain did not end with her husband’s death. After the burial, she found herself alone with her son. She returned to her mother’s house and started looking for casual jobs to fend for her child, because her mother is also jobless.

“The sad reality hit me. Here I was, a class eight dropout, with a child and no husband, and an emotional burden. I got depression and resorted to abusing drugs to try and forget my troubles,” she says.

She became an addict and needed to money for the drugs. She started stealing too.

“I would go from house to house and estate to estate begging for money, saying I needed it to fend for my son, but in reality, I needed to take drugs constantly. I would steal anything that was easily available,” she says.

She looked for a job in vain, she says, even trying commercial sex work, but she was uncomfortable with it.

Domestic worker

Then in November last year, a friend helped her get a job as a domestic worker in Ngong, where she was paid Sh5,000 monthly. She stopped taking drugs.

She worked there for only two months and went back to Nakuru.

“I do house cleaning, washing, and other casual jobs and I resorted to living a life that my son will one day be proud of.

“I am also proud to say that I use every little chance I get to advise people brought up in the environment I was brought up in to stay away from trouble. I also advise women and girls to be careful who they date. If you don’t know the kind of work he does, do not get involved with him, and trust your instincts,” she says.

Awino completed her primary education at Baharini Primary School in 2017 and met Maina in March 2018 at their Bondeni estate in Nakuru. The two got romantically involved and she did not join secondary school.

Within nine months of their friendship and at only 16, she got pregnant and she and Maina started living together.

Maina never introduced her to his family as she says that he would come up with excuses every time she raised a conversation on the same.

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