Man stabs wife to death as children watch

By Antony Gitonga                                

Naivasha residents were left in shock after a man stabbed his wife to death following a domestic quarrel.

In the bizarre incident, the man stabbed the wife over five times as his three children aged between six and one year watched in horror.

And for over eight hours, the minors lay next to the lifeless body of their mother identified as Ida Wanjiku before help came in the morning.

Initially the suspect said to be a fishmonger tied up the two older children and stuffed their mouths with an old cloth to avoid them from calling for help.

Emotions run high in the sprawling estate that houses mainly flower farm workers as a manhunt for the missing suspect started.

According to a witness Margaret Wanjiku, the couple fell out a few months ago with the woman who is a small scale trader seeking her own house.

“The two were always fighting and the woman moved on until Monday night when the man paid her a visit,” she said.

Wanjiku said that according to information gathered from the minors, the man first hit the woman with a blunt object on the head before tying up the minors.

She said that after stuffing the mouths of the two minors with pieces of clothes he proceeded to stab the woman several times.

“He later dumped the body on the bed together with those of the minors and escaped to unknown place,” she said.

It was not until morning according to Samuel Njuguna that the grandmother peeped into the room and found the minors tightly tied up.

“The incident has left us in shock and we are calling on police to hunt down this man so that he can face the law,” he said.

Speaking on phone, Naivasha police boss Charles Kortok said that initial investigations pointed to murder.

“The suspect went into hiding after the incident and we have launched a manhunt for him while the body has been taken to the Naivasha district hospital mortuary,” he said.