Two children on Friday, September 27 differed with their father on the withdrawal of a murder case against 13 relatives charged with killing their mother four years ago on allegations she was a witch.
Timothy Ngui and Purity Nthenya told Milimani principal magistrate Rose Ndombi "our father Nelson Ngui Mutiso did not consult us before making a decision to withdraw the case against the accused."
"The same people who heinously murdered our mother Juliana Mwikali Ngui on August 1 2020 have colluded with our father to compensate our mother by paying him 14 heads of cattle. They have already given him Sh120,000," Timothy and Nthenya told the magistrate.
As the two testified emotions ran high and tears flowed at the Milimani Law Courts Nairobi on Tuesday (September 24, 2024) when two children recounted how their mother suffered a painful death when her hands and legs were tied by unkind relatives of their father before she was cruelly murdered.
As if that was not enough, they torched her house after locking the doors then stood guard as flames of fire her body.
As memories of the charred remains of their mother were rekindled by both prosecution and defence Timothy Ngui and his sister Purity Nthenya Ngui could not hold back their tears with instances of losing their voices as they recalled the gory scene.
The two said their loving mother did not deserve to die such a painful death in the hands of their Uncles and Cousins who had accused her of being a witch and practicing witchcraft.
“Do not bombard me with such questions regarding the scene where the charred remains of my mother were collected by police, the gory scene and mortuary experience,” Ms Purity Nthenya told the defence lawyer defending 13 persons charged for murdering her mother Juliana Mwikali Ngui on August 1, 2020.
And Timothy Ngui, a son to the deceased could not hide his anger when he stated, “the same people who brutally killed my mother have approached my father Nelson Ngui through a clan elder by enticing him with Sh120,000 plus 14 cows as compensation for my late mother so as to withdraw the murder case filed against them by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).”
Purity and Timothy categorically told Milimani Law Courts principal magistrate Ndombi “all we need is justice for our mother. Let our father (who is sitting her in court) know that money and cows cannot replace the love and care our mother showed us.”
Purity and Timothy were testifying in a case where their 13 relatives are charged with attempting to murder their father Nelson Ngui Mutiso on July 31,2020 and burning his house of unknown value at Kathuma Village, Misakwani sublocation, Mumbuni location in Machakos sub-county within Machakos county on July 30, 2020.
The 13 are charged over both the murder of Juliana Mwikali (August 1,2020) and attempted of Nelson Ngui Mutiso and his son Jackson Makau Ngui on July 30,2020.
Those in dock her Antony Mutua Kilonzo (brother to Nelson), Paul Muvenge Zacharia, his wife Esther Ngina Zacharia, Fredrick Mutiso Mutua, Benson Mwanzia Mutua, Noah Mutua Muvenge, Esther Kavindu Ngui, Jackson Mutinda John, Antony Mbindyo Nyamai, Fredrick Munyunzu Musyoki, Wilfred Mutisya Munyao, Fredrick Muasa Munyao and Felix Musembi Muvengei.
In his evidence Timothy stated that prior to the heinous killing of his mother he had received threatening message’s on his cellphone from his cousin telling him that he will be killed alongside his sisters and brother as “their mother (now deceased) had bewitched them as they cannot secure employment and their future was doomed.”
Timothy further said he handed over his cellphone to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for analysis.
Timothy added that the plot to kill his late mother was plotted at Mutitu Andei during a family meeting convened by his Uncle Antony Mutua Mutiso.
One of the agendas of the meeting which he also attended “was to flash out witches in the family through administering an oath known as Ngata (a ritual performed such that partakers cannot bewitch or be bewitched).”
He said he caused a stir when he attended as some of his relatives mostly uncles got disturbed by asking who had invited him as “his mother was an agenda.”
The witness told the court the Mutitu Andei meeting went on as the chairman of Atangwa (a sub-clan of the Akamba community) which the Mutiso family belong was in attendance.
He stated four months after the Mutitu Andei Meeting his mother was killed in cold blood in August 1, 2020. He said he was called immediately his mother was killed and her house torched.
Purity, a Public Health Officer in Mombasa County, told the court her sister called her on August 1,2020 and told “Our mother is no more. She has been killed and house set on fire.”
She recalled she boarded a bus and arrived at Machakos 9pm the same day. She went to her brothers residence where she met her father and brother Jackson Makau nursing serious injuries.
Recalled she, “My father told me the same people who attacked me on July 30,2020 leaving me and Jackson for the dead are the same persons who killed your mother.”
“My mother had called me on July 2020 and told me she had been threatened that she would be killed since she was a witch,” Purity told Ms Ndombi.
“Since it was during the lock-down period when Corona had ravaged the country I could not travel but had made arrangements to evacuate her,” she added.
However, she said her mother was killed when she had packed her clothes to run away from the impending attack.
She told the court that they are destitute since their father had a second family and now they have nobody to turn to.
She also said as a family they are greatly perturbed as her father has colluded with the accused through the Atangwa clan to be compensated the death of her mother.
“It did not occur to us that my uncles and cousins could conspire to kill my mother. I thought the WhatsApp messages of the death threats was just mere jealous as some of our cousins were jobless and us we were working,” Purity said.
The DPP has also turned down the request to withdraw the cases against the accused to pave way for an out-of-court settlement and compensation of the deceased.
“The accused are admitting they killed my mother by accepting to compensate her through the Atangwa Clan. We are not in agreement at all,” the siblings told the court.
