Late pastor’s family jailed over theft of livestock

By James Munyeki

Details of strange happenings are emerging as shocked neighbours recollect how a respected pastor’s family ran a cattle-rustling racket for years before the law finally caught up with them.

For months, residents of Kibathi village in the outskirts of Nyahururu town had complained of cows and heifers disappearing mysteriously, never to be seen again as strange vehicles made nocturnal visits to the home at night.

The mystery unravelled dramatically last week when a Nyahururu court jailed seven members of the late pastor’s family, including his 67-year-old wife, for seven years each.

Heart of a racket

A neighbour who sought anonymity told The Standard: “There was always commotion at the home with vehicles entering and leaving at night. It is just that we did not have any proof that the family was engaging in criminal activities.”

Another neighbour said that after every two nights, a car would come in the middle of the night and be loaded with meat, which was transported to Nairobi and sold to unsuspecting butchery owners.

It now emerges that the family was engaged in a racket that involved stealing cattle in Laikipia and Nyandarua and selling the meat in Nairobi.

An administrator in the area who also did not want his named mentioned said that before their arrest, at least ten cows had been reported missing a month before.

A Nyahururu-based butcher revealed that the family was at the heart of a racket where cattle were stolen from parts of Laikipia and smuggled into the family’s home where they were slaughtered and the meat ferried to Nairobi.

The neighbours’ suspicions and speculations were confirmed on Monday, when 67-year-old Grace Mukami, the widow of the late Wilson Wandimi was jailed for seven years together with six of her children.

Only two sons, one of who is in United States of America and the other in Mombasa escaped the fate of the family because they were not linked to the syndicate.

Gunny bag

Mukami and her six children, Wilson Mbuthia, David Gitonga, George Kiragu, Michael Thuo, Elizabeth Nyawira and Mercy Wanjiru were sentenced to serve seven years in jail each after they were found guilty of stealing three cows worth Sh220,000.

The seven had been charged with stealing the cattle belonging to Mary Nyambura on July 15 last year.

Court prosecutor James Koech had told the court that they had conspired to steal the cattle at midnight and slaughtered them with intention of selling the meat to undisclosed people.

The family’s tribulations started after Ms Nyambura reported the theft of her cows to Ol-Jor-Orok Police Station in Nyandarua triggering a search, which ultimately led the sleuths to Mukami’s homestead where they discovered that the seven had slaughtered the animals.

“Police found meat stashed in a gunny bag buried underground while three buckets of meat, hooves and heads were hidden in the store,” the prosecutor told the court.

After listening to eight prosecution witnesses, the magistrate was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the family members had conspired to commit the crime and gave his verdict.

Wilson Kiptoon said, “I am permitted by the law to hand you stiff sentences, but I have considered your mitigation and given that Mukami is elderly I, therefore, hand you seven years in jail each for the offence.”

Opinion in Kibathi village is divided on the outcome of the trial with some villagers expressing shock at the turn of events, describing Mukami and her children as law abiding citizens while others said justice had been slow in coming.

Some of the neighbours who spoke to The Standard welcomed the court verdict terming it as long overdue.

A villager who spoke on condition of anonymity said they had been suspecting the family for a long time.

He said the family had been using Toyota Probox cars to transport the meat to various destinations including Nairobi.

Another villager said it was incomprehensible that such an elderly mother could engage in such an illegal activity or allow her children to involve themselves in crime. “This has been a well-up family and we never thought they would commit such a crime. We are shocked that they were found guilty,” said a neighbour, Jane Njeri.

She was concerned that the home would now be left under no one’s care since other relatives had disowned them.

Forty days

“Most of the relatives who frequented the home in the past had stopped doing so in the recent past. One relative had told them to their faces that they were criminals. He vowed never to come to the rescue of the family and warned them never to visit his home in Laikipia,” she added.

But many Christians who knew the late pastor Wandimi could not comprehend how the family of a God fearing man who had run a feeding programme for the elderly had turned into gangsters.    

They said three years ago, troubled souls would visit Pastor Wandimi for spiritual nourishment and in search of solutions to their problems.

They recalled that Wandimi had made a name for himself for condemning evil and reminding his neighbours to abandon their sinful ways as the wages of sin was death.

Apparently, the proverbial 40 days for his family members are finally over and his homestead has become like a graveyard as his wife and six children cool their heels behind bars for transforming his home into a slaughterhouse for stolen cattle.

On the day The Standard visited the haunted homestead on a chilly afternoon at Kibathi village just outside Nyahururu town, villagers were busy going about their business.

Smoke emanated from the many houses located some five kilometres from the town.

As one enters the wooden gate, the grave of Wandimi who died three years ago is as conspicuous as the word ‘Pastor’, which is boldly inscribed on the cross of the grave.

The only sign of life at the desolate compound was some wet clothes hanging on the clothesline. The homestead appeared unkempt and littered.

All the three timber houses were locked with big padlocks and there is total silence.

And for the next seven years the cowsheds and chicken coops, which are now empty, will remain cold and Kibathi village will have to live with aura of malevolence wafting from the homestead.