A college girl who was burning with revenge hired some goons to give her boyfriend a thorough beating for unsettled scores.
The 21-year-old Utalii college paid five men to teach her lover a lesson because the lover had physically abused him and failed to say sorry.
The ‘discipline exercise’ when the attackers killed him instead, the Nyeri High Court heard on Thursday.
The court was told that Ms Esther Wambui, masterminded the murder of her lover Dennis Okumu who was a matatu tout in Githurai.
Justice Abigail Mshilla heard that Ms Wambui together with her mother Rosemary Nyawira and a family member Michael Muriuki killed Mr Okumu on the night of February 3 and 4, 2018 within Karatina Township.
A police investigator, Corporal Eliud Odhiambo, testified that Ms Wambui lured her lover, with whom she had sired a child, to her mother’s rural home in Karatina with the intention of “disciplining him” for physically abusing her.
“The mother, who works at a Karatina hospital, confessed to the crime. The deceased had taken supper at his in-laws’ home and was killed while being escorted to where he was to sleep,” said Mr Odhiambo.
His mutilated body was dumped at Kirimara in Mathira East sub-county. The body had five stab wounds in the neck, his eyes had been gouged out and some of his front teeth were missing, the court heard.
“The family had hired five assailants to discipline the deceased but it turned tragic and they ended up killing him,” said Mr Odhiambo in his evidence while being cross-examined by State Counsel Emma Gicheha.
After killing the 23-year-old tout, the detective said, mother and daughter paid Mr Muriuki, a boda boda operator, Sh3,000 to dump the body in Kirimara.
Mr Odhiambo testified that police were tipped off by one of the people hired to “discipline” Mr Okumu, leading to the arrest of the suspects. The case will be heard on June 4.
The slain tout’s workmate, Mr George Otieno, testified that the couple was living in Zimmerman Estate but Dennis had co-rented a separate house with a friend in Githurai.
Before his death, he had been attacked and injured in Zimmerman Estate by a group of thugs that stormed Ms Wambui’s house.
“On February 1, 2018 Dennis came to the Githurai bus stage wearing a hoodie because he had a head injury. He told us he had been attacked by thugs at his girlfriend’s house in Zimmerman. He said he was hit on the head with a log of wood and fell unconscious,” testified Mr Otieno.