Jealous Kirinyaga woman stabs ‘husband’ to death in love triangle

 Charity Muthoni, the suspect Photo: Courtesy

A 45-year-old mason from Kirinyaga County was on January 15 stabbed to death next to a cattle dip by a mother of four with whom he has been cohabiting for the past four years.

Police have launched a manhunt for Charity Muthoni, the woman said to have waylaid and killed James Mutugi of Kibingoti village, before switching off her phone and going underground.

Mutugi’s relatives say she was furious that he had been seen at a popular joint with his estranged wife and mother of his two children, and that this might have sparked the deadly attack.

“I ran to the scene when I was informed of an incident at about 11.30 pm on Sunday (January 15). At first, I thought one of my children was in trouble, only to get to the scene and find blood oozing from the victim’s lifeless body on the ground.

“On closer inspection, I realised it was my brother lying in a pool of blood. He had been stabbed below his left armpit with a long sharp object,’’ the deceased’s sister, Beatrice Wangeci, narrated.

Wangeci said she rushed to the scene when Muthoni called her saying she (Muthoni) had done “something foolish” near the cattle dip and hung up abruptly. She said that by the time a big crowd of curious residents gathered around the body, the assailant had already escaped.

According to Wangeci, Muthoni and her children from a previous relationship lived with her brother in a ‘come-we-stay arrangement.’ The two did not have children together.

“Muthoni started cohabiting with my brother four years ago. She came with her four children and Mutugi was taking care of them like they were his own. One of them was due to join Form One at a local girls’ secondary school this week and he had already paid her fee and done the necessary shopping,’’ she said.

Wangeci further claimed that Muthoni had warned their mother that one day, she would kill Mutugi because he had started misbehaving.

“Mum took the threat lightly only for the unthinkable to happen. She is so devastated after losing her first-born child,’’ Wangeci said.

Mutugi had no house at his parents’ home and preferred living in a rented house within Kibingiti market. The house is now deserted after the children moved to their maternal home.

Police in Kirinyaga West Sub-County confirmed that Muthoni has gone into hiding, but urged her to turn herself in at the nearest police station.

Area residents are helping in the manhunt and have vowed not to rest until she is apprehended. Mutugi’s body is currently lying at the Karatina sub-county hospital awaiting a post-mortem examination.