Anchor Jacky Maribe struggled to hold it together in court after Justice Jessie Lessit had ordered for the Citizen TV anchor to be remanded at Lang’ata Women’s Prison. Definitely distressed Maribe sat on the dock with her head and hands on her lap.
Her fiancé Jowie, who was conferring with his lawyer Cliff Ombeta, stopped for a moment and moved towards Maribe to shield her from the glare of media cameras
Jowie stood in front to Maribe with a stern face as he beckoned his friends to bring the journalist some tissue.
https://youtu.be/ayn2BOum2cM
He placed his right hand on Maribe’s back, but the visibly irritated journalist looked up and moved away from her fiancé’s protection.
Maribe then moved further away from Jowie and started conferring with her lawyer Katwa Kigen.
During their appearance in court on Tuesday, the couple looked away from each other the whole time, with their body language telling of a love gone sour.
Jowie will be remanded at Industrial Area Prison until Monday when he will take a plea.
Judge Jesse Lessit also ordered prison authorities to ensure he is taken to hospital for treatment of the gunshot wound on his left shoulder.
Maribe was ordered to undergo a mental assessment before taking a plea on Monday.
Ms Maribe spent the better part of Sunday receiving visitors, mainly colleagues from the fourth estate. A colleague who visited her at the police station said she was “composed and hoping for the best.”
She had also received six other journalists last Friday. Detectives handling the case remained cagey with information even as family sources expressed frustration at the pace of investigations.
Before today Ms Maribe was being detained at the police station as a suspect in the murder of Ms Monica Kimani who was found murdered at Lamuria Apartments off Dennis Pritt road in Nairobi on September 19. Detectives as per earlier wanted to establish from the DNA test whether Ms Maribe was at the scene of crime. This is after it emerged that Ms Maribe’s fiancé, Mr Joseph Irungu, who is the main suspect in the murder, was in the company of another person at the scene of crime.
Already, DNA samples taken from Mr Irungu place him at the scene of crime. Investigators this picked an ordinary knife from Ms Maribe’s Lang’ata estate residence and are examining it to establish whether it is the weapon that was used in the gruesome murder.
The results of the DNA will then be used to determine whether Ms Maribe will be considered as a suspect or witness in the murder case.
“The results hold the final fate of how Ms Maribe will be treated as from Thursday. That is what we are all anxiously waiting for,” said the source that requested for anonymity last week.
Sources at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) revealed that detectives were tasked to find out why Mr Irungu destroyed the trail of evidence linking him to the murder.
They suspect that his moves prior and after the murder, were aimed at concealing his visit at Ms Kimani’s residence.
Had newscaster Jacque Maribe not been in a cell, and had the murder of Monica Kimani not have plunged her into trouble with authorities, the journalist could be preparing to pop up on TV screens later today.
Colleagues say that at her workplace, Ms Maribe is not the person who crosses people’s paths.
“She is just a good person. She is a good, easygoing person who has no pressure; who knows what she is supposed to do,” the colleague said.
Another reporter, who has been with Ms Maribe at the political desk at the station for some time, said she is a woman who has a “very good relationship with everyone in the newsroom”.