Journalist Moses Dola will serve a 10 year jail term for his role in the death of his wife and former NTV reporter Wambui Kabiru in 2011.
This brings to an end, a murder trial that has run for close to seven years. In her ruling, Justice Roselyne Korir said that Doha did not intend to kill his wife and therefore charged him with manslaughter.
But how did the dread-locked reported die on that ill fated morning of May 1st 2011. According to Dola, the an argument over radio volume triggered events that led to the death of his wife.
“It was a split second thing: I saw her charge at me, I turned and tackled her and we both fell on the bed and she hit her head on the bed canopy,” he said when he took the witness stand last year. The former Nation Media Group scribe said things got out of hand after he switched on the radio.
Wambui was not happy about it. “She asked me, ‘Does it mean when you wake up everyone else should?’ She then woke up and unplugged the radio.”
The father of two further told Justice Roseline Korir that his wife’s reaction surprised and angered him. He said he woke up and plugged back the music system, which angered Wambui even more.
The commotion, he said, woke their son who was sleeping in their bedroom.
“I decided to leave the bedroom because it was approaching 7.30. I went to pick our son from his cot, but Wambui, who by that time was seated on the bed trimming her dread locks, shouted and told me to leave the baby alone.”
But he did not heed to her demands and went on to pick the child. Dola said the next thing he saw was Wambui charging at him with the scissors in her hand.
“I blocked her, but she kept coming at me, and the scissors pricked my thumb. She came again and that’s when I tacked her and we fell on the bed.”
“She told me ‘You have hurt me’. But I left and went to her brother who lived a few metres from out house and told him of the incident.”
He said he had drinks with Wambui’s brother and the two agreed to meet later that evening. “When I got back home, I was told by our househelp that [Wambui] hasn’t come out of the bedroom. I went in to talk to her and that’s when I saw blood oozing from the left side of her head.”
“I called her ‘Babe, babe, are you still angry?’ But she did not answer. I shook her but she did not respond. She was still warm. I checked her pulse and that’s when it hit me that she’s dead,” a tearful Dola said.
He said he collapsed and when he woke up, amid confusion, he called his parents and told them what had happened. The next time he came to his senses, he found himself on his way to Nakuru.
“I don’t know what happened or how I got there. I panicked. I alighted in Nakuru, it was raining, and I slept at the bus terminus. In the morning I decided to come back to Nairobi to surrender myself, but still on my way fear gripped me and I slept the second day at a bus station.”
He said it was the third day that he got courage and walked into Naivasha police station and gave himself up.