Was Kiiru principal murdered over 'mpango wa kando'?

A suspect in the murder case of Kiiru High School principal, Solomon Mwangi stunned a court when he revealed that his other target was a female M-Pesa shop attendant.

Joseph Kariuki Njuguna admitted under oath at the Kiambu Law Courts that he was among those who planned the murders in Gatundu, Kiambu County on diverse dates between November 6 and 11.

Kariuki told the court that he had been told the hit job involved killing the M-Pesa shop attendant who operates in Kiriaini — and who was having an affair with a married man.

The M-Pesa shop, the court heard, is at Kiiru shopping centre, not far from Kiiru High School.

Kariuki narrated how Mwangi’s wife, Jane Muthoni who is the principal of Ichachiri Girls Secondary School, took him together with other suspects, Njiru and Gikuyu, to Kiriaini and pointed to the M-Pesa shop where the attendant was working.

The court heard that Kariuki and Gikuyu went inside the M-Pesa shop where the girl sold them sodas. They later told Muthoni that the girl could not be killed at her workplace since her shop was adjacent to Kiriani Police Station and Equity Bank, which had CCTV cameras.

Though the ‘job’ was not executed, Muthoni allegedly still gave them Sh100,000 and said she will find ways to deal with the woman.

Kariuki told the court that plans to kill Mwangi had been hatched in June 2016, when a woman called Damaris, a longtime friend of Kariuki, called him with plans of a well-paying ‘hit’ job. Damaris told him that he would receive a call the following day from a guy called Njiru. The call did come. The planning meeting was allegedly held at a hotel in Kimbo Kahawa, Nairobi.

Muthoni, Kariuki, Njiru and Gikuyu met at a bar in Kiriaini on November 4, 2016.

Muthoni informed them that she planned to poison her husband’s drink and their work was to hang him with sisal ropes in the house the moment the poison took effect.

The killers were to be left in a car outside their house to wait a go-ahead from her. Hours later, is said to have informed them that the poison idea was not going to work.

It is alleged that the following day, a Sunday, the trio was called and told to meet Muthoni at Ndarugo area along the Thika Superhighway. Muthoni reportedly emerged from a car in the company of her husband who looked dazed. He was bundled into Kariuki’s car and taken to a coffee plantation where Gikuyu tied his neck with a sisal rope, while Muthoni was left in the car holding her husband’s cellphone. Gikuyu and Kariuki are said to have dragged Mwangi into the coffee plantation, covered his head and torso in gunny bags before hanging him from a tree.

Gikuyu is said to have removed his gumboots and put on the dead man’s sports shoes.

The pair returned only to find Muthoni and Njiru gone. They tried calling her as she had their Sh300,000 balance for the job, but her phone was off. They called Njiru who claimed he was on his way to Mombasa and promised to contact them later which he never did.

Kariuki was later arrested on December 8, 2016. The court will hear mitigations on April 9, before Kariuki is sentenced for the murder in which postmortem indicated that Mwangi died due to strangulation. Other suspects are still at large.

Muthoni has been charged with the murder as the main suspect. Her car was used to pick her husband from his school in Mathioya before he went missing. She denied the charges.