Mombasa mum burns husband and baby to death, then flees to lover

 Twenty eight years old Diana Kwamboka (left) is escorted by a police officer to identify the grave of her daughter where she buried her at Kinduguni village in Likoni.   Photo: Gideon Maundu

A 28-year-old widow in Mombasa who allegedly killed her husband by locking their house and dousing it in paraffin before reportedly setting it on fire and running away, forgot that her baby daughter was trapped inside with the man she intended to burn to death. Both her husband and baby died in the fire.

Diana Kwamboka is now facing two possible murder charges after preliminary findings of an autopsy revealed that her daughter, whose body was exhumed from a Muslim cemetery in Likoni, died from burns.

Diana is under a murder probe following the death of her husband, Mohamed Juma, who died in a house fire she is suspected to have lit on April 8 in Majengo Mapya area of Likoni.

Police alleged that Diana quarrelled with her husband and decided to lock the house and douse it  in paraffin at Kindunguni village in Likoni while Mohamed was asleep. 

She then reportedly fled the burning house to her lover, but returned after realising her one-year-old daughter, Brandy Josephine, was trapped inside too.

Detectives now suspect the baby either died in the flames or sustained serious burns and died later, before her mother secretly buried her to conceal the crime.

Reports indicate Diana confessed to police during interrogation that Brandy died and she buried her in secret.

The court ordered the exhumation of the baby’s body supervised by Chief Government Pathologist, Dr Johanssen Oduor, who told The Nairobian that the baby “had some burns in the head and on the left side of the body. We believe that she died from the burns and was secretly buried by the mother.” 

Diana’s husband’s body is still lying at the Coast General Hospital.

Likoni OCPD Willy Simba confirmed that she will face a murder charge as that she “had fled and was just arrested one week ago. That is when we discovered that her daughter had also died and she buried her secretly.”