I killed my mum and five children

Matata and his wife after his presidential pardon

Joshua Ndonye Matata looks oddly out of place in his stripped prison uniform. If you did not know his backstory, you would swear that he was in the wrong place. His daily life revolves in the confines of Kamiti Maximum Prison. He is perched on a rickety chair in the prison yard. A cat sits on his lap, and he obliviously strokes it. The gesture seems so gentle and loving, and totally misplaced in a place where many expect gruff and mean.

But the fact is, Joshua Ndonye Matata has records, and not good ones at that. One is a criminal record, and the other is a record as one of Kenya's most murderous fathers.