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Bilhah Njoki, who allegedly hatched a plan with her silblings to eliminate her husband, had lived with her mpango wa kando, also an accomplice in the murder plan, for three months.
Njoki left her matrimonial home in Nairobi’s Buruburu Phase 5 estate and moved in with Jimmy Ndung’u, with whom she allegedly plotted to kill her husband, Joseph Muraya on June 22, this year.
Njoki has since denied the charges alongside her sister and brother who were also charged accomplices.
Muraya, Njoki’s husband of nine years, told The Nairobian that drama started after Njoki started living with Ndung’u in March this year. She reportedly walked out of her matrimonial home, leaving behind their two children aged eight and five with Muraya, following a series of domestic disagreements.
The Kenya Airports Authority grounds traffic controller describes his wife as “venomous” and had no qualms leaving their children for an affair with Ndung’u, who lived in neighbouring Umoja estate. It is in Umoja where they allegedly hatched the plan to “kill me and enjoy life together,” says Muraya who was to be killed by hired hitmen on June 22.
But someone called Muraya on June 15, a week to the murder, with information that he could save his life if they met at Buruburu Police Station, where the stranger revealed that he had been contracted by Njoki, his estranged wife, to kill him for Sh500,000 and had already been paid a Sh100,000 deposit.
Muraya informed the police who laid a trap by tricking Njoki that they had killed her husband and dumped his body in Dandora.
Upon receiving the news, Njoki allegedly sent her brother, Peter Gakungi and her alleged mpango wa kando, Jimmy Waititu, to Mowlem to confirm that Muraya, was indeed dead. Police had covered Muraya with tomato paste to make it look like he was seriously injured before his death and when the two saw the “blood they began celebrating around the body.”
Muraya lay still as the unsuspecting men celebrated, but were soon arrested by cops who confiscated their phones and ordered them to take them to Njoki who had allegedly bought a new phone during the planning of the murder.
Police gathered even more evidence by having the hitman meet the planners at a restaurant along Manyanja Road, where there was a CCTV camera to record the meeting,including their conversations using a hidden recorder provided by the police to the informer.
Njoki was arrested near Mama Lucy Kibaki Hospital off Kangundo Road. She was in a black Toyota Harrier with her sister Lucy Mwangi when the cops pounced on her. The police recovered six mobile phones and Sh400,000 which was the balance due to the hitman.
Police were able to get phone call records that apparently established that Njoki had bought a new phone and line for the plan to execute her former husband.
“The car they were in was full of an assortment of expensive champagne, which I guess was for celebrating my death. The numbers on the car’s registration plates were also different to the numbers etched on its windows and mirrors,” revealed Muraya.
He added that his wife was “after our property and businesses which we still co-own together, because after I‘m gone, she can keep everything”. Some of the properties owned by the estranged couple include a house in Buruburu and a mobile phone shop on Luthuli Avenue.
“ I have not be able to work or spend in my house. She has proved to be a vicious woman and if she is released on bond, my life will be in mortal danger,” said Muraya. Through her lawyers,
Njoki claimed she was assaulted and threatened with death by Muraya on diverse dates between May and June and that although she reported the matter at the Buruburu Police Station, no action was taken.
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