When Monica Wairimu was widowed at the age of 33 in 2017, she decided to befriend a 39-year-old man from the neighbouring village.
Her husband David Mburu died in 2017 after a short illness, leaving her with three children — two sons, who are now in their early twenties, and a daughter.
The problem was, with her new-found lover John Kamau, Wairimu did not make any effort to conceal their relationship and the couple would do their thing inside her matrimonial home in Gitaimbuka village in Kandara Constituency.
A door that was forced open to access the house where Monica Wairimu and John Kamau were found dead at Gitaimbuka Village in Murang'a County.
Photo credit: Joseph Kanyi | Nation Media Group
“That was their biggest mistake. Theirs was an ill-fated affair whose ending could only be in tragedy,” says Wairimu’s father-in-law, Mr Julius Kuria. He said he had bought land and built his son a house. His son then brought Wairimu to live with him.
“That Mr Kamau started coming into my son’s house and being amorous with his widow was a grave abomination,” he said.
Mr Kuria said he was not surprised when, on September 4, the bodies of the two lovebirds were retrieved from the house in a case the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has ruled as possible murder-suicide.
Ms Wairimu died aged 40 while Kamau was aged 45. According to an incident report filed at Githumu Police Station, the bodies were found in the bedroom, Wairimu with stab wounds on her neck and head and Kamau hanging from the rafters with a rope around his neck.
“Preliminary report points to a possible scenario that Mr Kamau murdered Ms Wairimu before he took his own life by hanging himself,” the report reads.
The report adds that Wairimu was last seen alive at 7pm on Saturday last week inside her house while Mr Kamau was seen entering the same house on the same date some minutes to 8pm.
The house where Monica Wairimu and John Kamau were found dead at Gitaimbuka Village in Murang'a County.
Photo credit: Joseph Kanyi | Nation Media Group
Wairimu’s two sons live in separate houses while the daughter had gone for a sleepover at her grandfather’s home.
“That was the last time Ms Wairimu was ever seen alive and, after two days, efforts to reach her on her cell phone failed. A decision to break into the house was arrived at by close family members,” the report says, adding that Kamau was seen entering Wairimu’s house around 11 pm on Sunday.
“By the look of the naked eye, Ms Wairimu’s body appeared to have died on the night of September 2 while that of Mr Kamau appeared to have died on the night of September 3,” the report says.
It alludes to a most likely scenario that, after Kamau murdered Wairimu, he left her body neatly covered with bedsheets in bed, went drinking at the nearby Githumu shopping centre and returned to take his life.
Both were described by neighbours as being deeply in love, supporting each other emotionally and financially.
“While there is nothing wrong with the two liking each other and even doing what we all knew they were doing together, my only reservation was them doing it in the full glare of her three children and even [Kamau] going to her house in broad daylight. That was a desecration of my son’s matrimonial home and bed,” Mr Kuria lamented. At Kamau’s matrimonial home, his grieving widow and close relatives were reluctant to talk about the matter.
Mourners at the home of Monica Wairimu in Gitaimbuka Village in Murang'a County on September 6, 2023.
Photo credit: Joseph Kanyi | Nation Media Group
“We are planning [Kamau’s] burial. We have accepted. It is a painful experience and a blot on our family. We have surrendered to fate and we look forward to healing,” said the family’s spokesman Mr Edwin Mwangi.
The family, he revealed, “had on various occasions tried to counsel [Kamau] against his blatantly public relationship with Wairimu inside her matrimonial home”, which had caused bad blood between Kamau and “his children and wife”.
