The 30-year jail term handed down to Jane Muthoni, former Principal of Icaciri Secondary School, over the grisly murder of her husband Solomon Mwangi Mbuthi, reaffirms DCI’s prowess in investigations and in unravelling complex murder puzzles.
In a ruling made by Justice Joel Ngugi at the Nakuru High Court, Muthoni was found guilty of plotting her husband’s killing on suspicion of having a love affair with an Mpesa agent in Murang’a.
The mutilated body of the Principal of Kiiru Boys was found covered in soiled gunny bags in a thicket at Karakuta Coffee Estate in Juja, Kiambu County. That was five days after he had disappeared on November 6, 2016.
His killers seized him before he picked KCSE examination papers the next morning, the day the national examination was set to begin. This prompted a search for him. It took detectives drawn from the Homicide branch, Cyber Crime, Scenes of Crime and Crime Research & Intelligence Bureau days to crack the murder puzzle. It’s the evidence they gathered meticulously that nailed Muthoni in court.
Detectives arrested Muthoni and her two accomplices – identified as Isack Ng’ang’a Wambui and Joseph Kariuki Njuguna alias Karis.
A fourth suspect who helped execute the murder, Nelson Njiru Magati, went underground. Detectives are still hunting for him. Kairuki accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter. He landed seven years in jail. In turn, he agreed to testify against the other two accused and is currently cooling his heels in jail.
Through investigative interviewing of various witnesses, forensic analysis of the recovered exhibits and repeat combing of the scene for more clues into the murder, detectives managed to place the two accused persons at the scene of the gruesome murder. There’s no doubt that the conviction of the woman and her co-killers is a demonstration that crime does not pay and that nobody can escape the long arm of the law.
By DCI
