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Woman, five relatives to hang for butchering husband who added new wife


A woman and her five relatives have been sent to the gallows for killing her husband, tying boulders on his body and throwing it in a waterfall to conceal evidence.

Three Court of Appeal judges described the killing of David Macharia on June 12, 2004 as a cold-hearted, chilling murder.

The judges upheld the death sentence imposed on the wife Anne Waithera Macharia, her sister Ruth Wanjiru Maina, David Njoroge Kimotho, Joseph Kinyuru Kirumbi, Eliud Kimani Mwai and her son Joseph Macharia Maina.

GREED FOR PROPERTY

They said Ms Waithera hatched the plot to kill her husband after he married a second wife. They said she was driven by greed for her husband’s property.

Judges Philip Waki, Roselyn Nambuye and Patrick Kiage observed that; “when marriage and family become a mortal peril for spouses, and children kill their parents without blinking, something of our humanity is lost and the law must be deployed and enforced to express our collective horror, revulsion and outrage.”

“It is for such cold-hearted killers that the penalty of death was legislated and for whom the courts must declare it. The same was properly imposed and we have no reason to disturb it. We confirm and uphold it.”

They killed Macharia, who was milking his cows at Kamae in Lari division, Kiambu County, by slashing his neck with a panga, wrapped the body in blankets , stashed it in two sacks, tied boulders around it and threw it at a waterfall deep in a forest.

‘PURE HATRED’

The three judges said elimination of Macharia, “was a dark mix of jealousy, rage, greed, impatience and pure hatred compounded to turn the marital space into a deadly trap and to convert filial fealty into a grossly cruel patricide.”

The deceased is said to have taken a second wife Hannah Wambui due to incessant marital problems with his first wife Ms Waithera.

On the day of his murder, hewent to milk his cows in his farm but never returned home.

The judges upheld the death sentence imposed by Lady Justice Florence Muchemi that all the six accused persons were guilty of murder.