Kiambu deaths: Relative links gruesome murder of four family members to either curses or land issues

Karura, the place where a son’s strained relationship with his parents resulted in a murderous mayhem on January 6, is a small hamlet of hundred plus houses scattered like spilled matchsticks along the road.

Though Lawrence Warunge, the 22 year old IT student confessed to killing his father Nicholas Warunge, his mother, brother, nephew and a farm hand, death has somehow, always lurked in the shadows.  

The late Nicholas Warunge’s father had two wives, Nyambura and Njeri for whom he had subdivided his land among their children and lived happily with his two families. He is now deceased.

Warunge’s mother, Njeri, was the second wife. Both families lived next to each other.

A close family member told The Nairobian that “we have never heard of fights or mysterious deaths in the first family and this has raised eyebrows in the village. The two families are not that close to each other but whenever there is a problem they help each other.”

Both families are well-off. Nyambura’s brood are not badly off, the proceeds of   intensive farming, while the second family are in private business.

The late Warunge, 54, had a residential flat and parcels of land, the bulk of them bought from proceeds of nursing in the USA where he relocated after his hardware business went bust in the 1990s.

What has left village elders shaking their puzzled heads is why it is the second  family which has been facing a string of misfortunes.

“These families rarely interact with the villagers so if there is any bad blood between them it’s hard to know,” explains the family friend adding that “but there must be something going on inside these homes that we don’t know.”

Two brothers are now dead, one from being accosted while leaving a bar in Ndenderu and bludgeoned to death in 2017 while Warunge was killed by his estranged son who had problems with his mother, Anne Njeri, a nurse.

Another has had two attempts on his life while another equally well-off brother left Karura for Ngong-and only these two now survive from the first family. Warunge’s two daughters had reported to school and escaped death.

Our source, the close family friend pegs the misfortunes on deep-seated family issues “maybe a curse or land issues.”

Wycliffe Ngozi, their neighbour explains that “one of the relatives from his mother’s side had bought  half an acre adjacent to their house. The young man (Lawrence) was put in charge at the construction site because the relative trusted him.” A half acre in Karura goes for between Sh5 million and Sh7 million.

An elder from the area said that the family has suffered misfortunes in the past and no one knows why but “I think there is something that haunts this family.

The incident has disturbed our village. This family should get together so that they can identify what is ailing them. It’s like there is a spirit that wants to destroy this family.”

 Karura has a shopping centre where it’s common to spot inebriated villagers engage in fisticuffs but is now the spot of bloody murders in one family.