Ms Mary Wangui — the 60-year-old woman who was burnt to death on Sunday morning alongside her three daughters and two grandchildren in Kandara, Murang’a County — had probably seen it coming.
On Saturday, around 6.30pm, she approached a neighbour in Nguthuru village, Ms Alice Kamau, and asked her to pray with her.
“She radiated abnormal grace and sounded reconciliatory, as though preparing to let go all of her heartaches and worries. She was the one who said the prayer,” Ms Kamau said.
“She prayed for her polygamous family, urged God to forgive all those who have been planting seeds of discord in the family, beseeched God to arbitrate in the family conflicts and said she had surrendered her soul to the throne of mercy and was ready to suffer the price of pursuing peace.”
After the prayer, Ms Wangui bid her bosom friend goodbye and walked back to her compound and into the house that, seven hours later, became the kiln that ended her life and those of five members of her family.
Family of six killed in suspected arson attack
Ms Wangui had divorced her husband 20 years earlier and returned to her parents’ home. She lived in the house with her two daughters Lucy Mumbi, 18, who had sat her Form Four exams last month, and Margaret Wanja, 15, who was in Form One.
Her daughter, Cecilia Gathoni, 30, and her two children — Jackline Wambui and Alvin Kiarie — had come to visit and as fate would have it, all died in the arson attack.
The suspect in police custody is Ms Wangui’s last-born sister, Ms Alice Nyambura, who separated from her husband four years ago.
The house they died in had been left behind by Ms Wangui’s father, Mr Njoroge Kung’u, who died in 2000 as he waited for a matatu in the nearby Makenji trading centre.
Cecilia Gathoni who died in the Kandara Sunday morning arson attack
Photo credit: Mwangi Muiruri | Nation Media Group
Witnesses said he was seen standing at the stage but after a few minutes he staggered to a nearby tree and sat down. He was taken to Thika Level Five Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, with post-mortem report revealing that he died of cardiac arrest.
Mr Kung’u had two wives when he died. The first, Alice Wagikuyu, died in 2008 after she was hit by her cow that she was giving water to.
His second wife, Rebecca Wambui, the late Ms Wangui’s mother, could not stand the conflict between the latter and the suspect now in police custody, and so she left and went to live with her son a few metres from her late husband’s house.
He used to work as transport manager at the nearby Del Monte fruit processing firm and had accumulated immense wealth by the time of his death. He had more than 150 acres of land in Kiambu and Murang’a counties, more than 20 transport vehicles and five tractors, as well as commercial buildings and shares in listed companies.
He held his family together but when he died, a conflict emerged involving three camps. The children, their mothers and their grandchildren engaged in regular inheritance feuds that ended up at police stations or the chief’s office.
From left: Lucy Mumbi, Margaret Wanja and Jackline Wambui who died in the Sunday morning arson attack in Kandara Sub County
Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group
Ms Wangui and Ms Nyambura shared the five-bedroom house with a common sitting room but were not seeing eye to eye despite being sisters. The enmity had spread even to their children.
Rooms not affected by fire
Suspicions fell on Ms Nyambura on the grounds that despite living in the same house with her two daughters, the two rooms that they used were not affected by the fire.
According to a preliminary police report seen by the Nation, detectives have established that Ms Nyambura had directed her two daughters to sleep in the sitting room instead of their usual bedrooms.
“The suspect had also moved some of her belongings to an unknown place and the few that remained had also been moved to the table room where her daughters slept during the tragedy,” the report says.
“The room in which all the six died had been locked from the outside and the only occupants in the house who survived was Ms Nyambura and her two daughters.”
Detectives are trying to find out whether the six who died were first woken up and herded into one room. This brings up the possibility that more than one person was involved in the arson attack.
Items seized from suspect
In the sworn affidavit that the homicide detectives presented in a Kandara court as they sought to hold the suspect for 21 days, they listed items seized from her bedroom, including containers and clothes that smelt of petrol and used matchsticks.
“We are now pursuing where the petrol was sourced from, who bought it and who transported it to the homestead,” a detective privy to the investigations said.
Among people detectives want to question are Ms Nyambura’s two daughters, who are minors, all family members, police officers and administrators who had earlier handled conflicts in the family.
“We are also pursuing a reported will that the late Kung’u had left, a succession letter drawn by the area chief detailing who are supposed to be listed as heirs to his estate, as well as witness accounts on family meetings convened several times to decide how to share the estate,” the detective said.
Key in the inheritance dispute was the suspicion that daughters in the family were leaving their husbands to come home and inherit their father’s property.
Ms Nyambura returns to court on May 3. Detectives believe that by then, they will have tied up the loose ends in the investigation of the attack that shocked Murang’a residents.
