Meru man to hang for beheading daughter, attacking wife

MERU: On December 5, 2005 Winifred Kinya, of Kabuiti village, Meru County, bid her children and husband farewell as she left for a relative’s funeral.

Having left her children in their father, Nathan Mwito’s, safe custody, it did not occur to Kinya this was the last time she’d see her beloved daughter, Christine Mukiria, alive.

That night at about 3am, while the children were asleep, Mwito came into their room and woke his daughter and asked her to sleep in his bedroom. Her brother Daniel Thuranira found the request unusual since their mother was not around but kept silent.

When he got up in the morning, his father and sister were nowhere to be found. Thuranira decided to skip school and instead wait for his father. His mother found him at home later in the day and when he told her that the two had been missing since morning, Kinya went to look for them. She found Mwito at their shamba and he lured her to a freshly dug grave where to Kinya’s horror she spotted Mukiria’s sweater and before she could scream, her husband struck her with the machete.

Whilst threatening to kill her, Mwito proceeded to slash her several times then fled the scene leaving her for dead. She, however, dragged herself to a neighbour’s house where she was rushed to hospital and treated.

In the meantime, Mwito traveled to his brother, Sampson Mungathi’s house, some 60 kilometres away, where he said he’d killed his wife and daughter. Mungathi then alerted another brother and together they frogmarched their sibling to the police station where he was arrested and eventually charged with the murder of his daughter.

Appearing at the Meru High Court, Mwito claimed he was carrying Mukiria on his shoulders when he slipped and she fell on the panga which cut her neck. In order to protect his other child from shock, Mwito said he covered the deceased’s body with branches and went to report to his brother.

He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death but unwilling to accept his fate, Mwito appealed the judgment which was also dismissed by Justices Roselyn Nambuye, Patrick Kiage and Fatuma Sichale. 

The judges said Mwito’s vicious attack on his wife, his confession to his brother and the post-mortem report which indicated that Mukiria’s cuts were ‘neat’ and not capable of being occasioned by an accidental fall on a panga were indicative of his guilt.