Boy, 12, takes witness stand in mother's fatal stabbing case

A twelve-year-old boy yesterday testified before the Nairobi High Court how he watched helplessly as his stepfather stabbed his mother multiple times outside their home at night, leading to her death.

In a chilling account before Justice Alexander Muteti, the boy, who cannot be named owing to his age, told the packed courtroom how the accused, Joseph Okello Odhiambo, whom he referred to throughout the proceedings simply as “Jose,” attacked his mother shortly after chasing them away from the house they had been living in together.

The boy testified that the incident occurred on May 7, 2023, around 9 pm along a dusty road near their gate in Kasarani Clayworks in Nairobi County area under bright security lights.

He told the court in calm, unflinching detail how the accused held his mother, Gladys Ndulu, from behind as they waited for her sister to pick her clothes from their stepfather’s house, drew a Maasai knife concealed at his waist, and drove it into her neck and ribs before fleeing into the night.

"I saw Jose holding my mom from behind, pulling her near the neighbour's gate," the boy told the judge Muteti.

 "He was holding the knife using his right hand, the knife which had been hidden in his waistband. I saw Jose stab my mother with a Masai knife. After stabbing my mother, Jose returned the knife to his waistband and ran away."

The court heard that the events of May 7, 2023, began with a seemingly routine errand.

The boy, his younger sister Jackline, and their mother had earlier been walking home from a salon when they met his stepfather, whom he later identified in the dock. The mother and sister declined to respond to his greeting.  

On returning, Okello chased them away and locked the house with a padlock.

As they left the apartment compound, the court heard that the mother request Okello to allow her daughter to pick her clothes.

“He agreed and gave the keys to my sister. I remained at the gate waiting for her, and my mother walked away with Jose,” he stated.

The boy told the court that as the two adults moved away from the gate and turned a corner onto a dusty road, he chose not to follow immediately.

"I stayed until they left the corner, then I followed them," he testified.

 "I found them standing at the corner. I came and hid at the post along a dusty road near a corner,"

The road was deserted. Security lights illuminated the stretch of tarmac.

The time was approximately 9 p.m. From his hiding spot behind the post, the boy said he had a clear, unobstructed view of his mother and the accused, who were standing a short distance away near a neighbor's gate.

What he witnessed next forms the heart of the prosecution's case.

"I saw Jose holding my mom from behind, pulling her near the neighbour’s gate," he recounted.

 "He stabbed her at the neck, the ribs, and she fell down."

The moment Okello fled, the boy ran to his mother.

He found her alive but gravely wounded and bleeding excessively, slumped on the ground.

In what prosecutors are likely to present as a dying declaration, the boy told the court he asked his mother what had happened and what the attacker had used against her.

"When I asked her what the man used to stab her," the boy told Justice Muteti, "she told me it was a knife."

Gladys Ndulu then made one final request of her son.

"She told me to scream, and I did," the boy said.

His screams drew his sister Jackline, and together the two children cried out until neighbours poured out of surrounding houses.

Jackline grabbed their mother's phone and called Shadrack Mutisya, a man the children referred to as their  "father", an estranged former partner of the deceased from whom she had separated just three months before taking up with the accused.

Neighbours and the landlord later arrived with a vehicle and his injured Mother was rushed to St. Francis Hospital in Kasarani.

He maintained during cross-examination by his stepfather's lawyer, Charles Lwanga, that electricity lights illuminated the road and that only the three of them were present at the time of the incident.

“I confirm to this court that from where I was hiding, I clearly saw what happened to my mother and the Knife( Believed to be the murder weapon) was not at the scene of the crime,” the boy said.

The court also heard the evidence of David Ondieki, the landlord of the property and a retired officer, who testified that he had just returned from travel when his grandson ran to inform him of the attack.

"My grandson came and informed me that Joseph Okello Odhiambo had stabbed his wife," Ondieki told the court.

 "I found a lot of people. The incident had happened outside my compound. I found the woman and the children sitting outside. The Shadrack Mutisya, whom the children told me is their "uncle," had already arrived."

Ondieki immediately loaded Ndulu into a vehicle and drove her to St Francis Hospital in Kasarani, a journey of roughly ten minutes.

"When I arrived at the hospital, the deceased was alive, but she was pronounced dead on arrival," he testified sombrely.

Ndulu was declared dead at the emergency room, barely a few metres from the home she had shared with her killer.

Okello fled the scene after the attack and remained at large as police from Clay City Post and detectives from CID Kasarani launched an immediate manhunt.

Ondieki further told the court that members of the public later spotted the accused near a river before he was eventually arrested near Githurai 45 railway line and brought back to the scene.

A search of his body by officers produced the alleged murder weapon the boy had described, a Masai knife, still tucked at the accused's waistline, exactly where the child had told the court it would be.

The knife was seized and was also produced in court as an exhibit.

The court heard that the deceased had lived at the rental premises for about a year, while her relationship with the accused had lasted approximately three months.

“I knew the accused, who is seated in the dock, as my tenant. He was hardworking. I even took him to church where he received help, and later he was able to start working as a smokie and mayai vendor in Kasarani,” Ondieki told the court.  

 Following her death, the children were initially taken in by relatives and are now living with their grandmother.

The children, now orphaned by their mother and estranged from every father figure in their orbit, currently live with their grandmother.

Hearing of the case continues this morning