Wainaina Wa Ndungu

1 August 2010

Nairobi — A Nyeri court last week drew the curtain on one of the most chilling deaths of a senior policeman in the region. Or did it?

Chief magistrate Stella Muketi sentenced former police constable Peter Mundia Murigo to death for a violent robbery that ended in the killing of former Othaya CID boss Jonah Kimanzi Nzau on the night of June 13, last year.

But questions still linger on why this particular robbery was executed with such brutal intensity.

Mr Nzau's badly hacked body still evokes sad memories in his closest relatives. His wife, Florence and son, Michael were among the first to arrive at the scene where the former chief inspector was felled. It was virtually at the doorstep of their house within the Othaya Approved School compound.

The inspector, who was dressed in a dark jacket that night, had been shot, then hacked several times in the head. According to the postmortem examination report, he had died of "cadiorespiratory" arrest due to the severe head injury. The prosecution case hinged on the basis that the robbers had targeted Mr Nzau after learning that he had stashed some cash in a safe in his office at Othaya Police Station.

That safe was found interfered with soon after the murder, but the inspector's bunch of keys lay on the spot where he was killed up to the following morning. Mr Murigo was a constable in the neighbouring Chinga Police Station -- three kilometres away. Did he take part in the violent robbery, rush to Mr Nzau's office and empty the safe, return the keys to the murder scene and rush back to Chinga station where he was on duty?

It was established that Mr Murigo sneaked from the report desk between 10pm and 11.45pm. He had allowed his lone colleague to go for supper, then he left the desk unmanned and returned long after the female colleague had come back and found the desk deserted. Mr Murigo explained that he went for supper and fell asleep as he had a busy day.

But his almost two-hour absence from duty was one of the main incriminating evidence: "The accused was not at work at the time the deceased was killed. That means he had an opportunity to kill the deceased," said the magistrate.

Then there was the issue of how he was arrested. A CID officer who was in the team investigating the case said Mr Murigo made a careless boast on returning to his station after the unexplained absence. "Ya Nzau tumemaliza," (we've finished Nzau's) the constable is said to have said in a telephone conversation eavesdropped on by his colleagues.

Finishing duty, Mr Murigo had gone missing from his house at Chinga Police Station for four days until his arrest 20 kilometres away in a house he shared with his girlfriend in Nyeri Town. Multiple theories abound about why the tall dark skin constable with a confident pose would have wanted the inspector dead.

At 30, Murigo is "wealthy" with at least two matatus on the road. There were whispers at Chinga that he was connected to the underworld which Mr Nzau was investigating. But police would have found it difficult to sustain a murder charge and opted for robbery with violence. There are also whispers of a love triangle but the prosecution thought a murder charge had the risk of ending up as manslaughter and the suspect discharged.

It appears Mr Nzau, described by colleagues as a habitual drinker, had unknowingly made his murder very easy for his enemies by establishing a pattern. According to colleagues, after a drink extending into the late hours of the night, he would pick a motorcycle taxi home. As soon as he was dropped outside his house, his pistol would be drawn and cocked. Then he would walk and unlock his house.

It appears his killers knew of this pattern. On the day he died, a call was placed on his phone as he disembarked from the boda boda. In the few seconds he fumbled to reach his phone, the robbers had their break. His wife and son who were visiting heard the gunshots then tried to raise him on his phone. It didn't go through. A few minutes later, they ventured out and found him dead.

DNA analysis on blood-stained Safari boots recovered from Mr Murigo's house in Nyeri strongly connected the accused to the offence. But the defence strongly pointed out that the recovery of the boots was not recorded in the Occurrence Book by the investigating officer. Was this a glaring omission? Were the boots introduced?

The magistrate ruled that the omission could have resulted from a large investigating team that made it difficult to keep a proper inventory of recovered items. Will this be the end of this story? Certainly not. Mr Murigo's defence has already applied for copies of the proceedings to plan an appeal.