Kimuri: Estate of gruesome murders

When the hearses carrying the caskets of Judith Wanjiku and her daughter Catherine Nyaguthii snaked their way to Kimuri estate in the outskirts of Kerugoya town, it was a familiar sight for a village that has borne the brunt of gruesome murders.

Before them, their neighbour Jimmy Komu Mugo and his wife were murdered in a ghastly attack that left one of their children dumb and the others emotionally wrecked.

Jimmy was the son of Mugo Komu, a former clerk at Kirinyaga County Council, who had left behind an enviable prime piece of land. Jimmy is said to have been resisting an intended sub-division of the property.

It was in April 2003 when the attack happened in the very presence of their children -- a six month old infant and two others aged four and six. The elder one was so crushed she went dumb.

Jimmy’s mother, his sister, two step-brothers and three others were arrested the following morning in connection with the killings. Two years later, they all walked home free after the prosecution failed to produce a single witness to the murder. Just 300 metres from Komu’s homestead lies the grave of John Njeru. In 1997, Njeru was walking home shortly after 7.30pm from his usual chores at the busy matatu bus park, when, a few metres from his home, a gang descended on him, killing him instantly. His widow, 68 year old Jane Wangu, is still desolate many years later.

Njeru owned 25 acres of prime land which a section of relatives, Wangu says, always wanted on account of its proximity to the town.

“After the brutal murder, they started scrambling for it through fraudulent means. They allocated me just two plots, each measuring a quarter of an acre,” she claimed.

Wangu said those who took over her husband’s property over-indulged themselves to early deaths.

Incidentally, this is the same village where Kenya’s long-serving spymaster James Kanyottu is buried. And so, when mother and daughter’s caskets were lowered earlier this week, they were another sad statistic in Kimuri.