Man pleads guilty to manslaughter, freed on Sh400,000 bond

A man who pleaded guilty to killing his wife in October last year after suspecting her of infidelity has been released on a Sh400,000 bond by a Nairobi court.

Stephen Nyangeri Mauti is accused of strangling Faith Nyatichi on October 3 last year in Kangemi, Nairobi.

“Your honour, the suspect killed (Ms Nyatichi) by strangling her and she was pronounced dead on arrival at Eagle Hospital in Kangemi. A postmortem done at Chiromo Hospital established Nyatichi died from manual strangulation,” said the prosecution.

Mr Mauti accepted all the facts of the charge but denied having killed her through strangulation.

A police report produced in court stated that Nyatichi visited Mauti on the fateful day, at Kangemi Hill View, where they had rented a house after relocating from Nyeri County.

The investigators said the woman later left saying she was going to visit her cousin in Kiserian, Kajiado County.

After a while, Mauti reportedly called to find out when she would be back only for her to inform him that she had changed her mind and travelled to the village instead.

Mauti called Nyatichi’s brother to find out whether they had relatives in Kiserian. The brother reportedly told him that they did not have any relatives in Kiserian and that Nyatichi had not travelled to the village as she had earlier told her husband.

Mauti, in his statement, said he discovered that his wife was seeing another man. 

Mauti claimed on the day she died, they had a bitter exchange.

“During their quarrel, Nyatichi shouted at me telling me I am not man enough. I grabbed her and tried to calm her down,” Mauti told the investigators.

Police report says that a few minutes later Nyatichi fell unconscious.

He called neighbours who took her to hospital. She was pronounced dead on arrival.