Police hunt for two men over Wambui's murder
What you need to know:
- They put the house up for sale in 2015 before eventually opting to rent it out. In Nairobi, the family set up a hardware shop in Kahawa West, run and managed by Wambui.
- It was at the hardware shop where Wambui met Wangui, whom she employed as an assistant before Kori transferred the girl to the treatment plant in Nakuru, where she worked as a secretary.
Detectives are looking for two men they believe could shed light on the hours leading to the death of a woman in Nairobi on Saturday in a suspected crime of passion.
The two men shared a meal at Homeland Inn on Thika Road with the victim, Mary Wambui, and Judy Wangui, a suspect who is in police custody.
Also being held over the murder is Wambui’s husband and Wangui’s alleged lover Joseph Kori.
The two men police are looking for are believed to have information on what transpired between the two women before the fateful evening.
Also being sought is Wambui’s mobile phone, which was not found in her car on Wednesday.
SHOCK
The white Mercedes Benz saloon was found abandoned at Kwa Maiko shopping centre in Githunguri, Kiambu County.
Inside it were Wambui’s clothes. Residents said it had been abandoned there since Sunday. Detectives towed the car to Ngewa Police Station, where it was dusted for evidence.
Two children of the Koris, one aged 13 and the other six, were withdrawn from school by relatives to help them manage the shock, while in Nakuru, Wambui’s mother Virginia Njeri Kamangara had difficulty comprehending how her “selfless” son-in-law could have taken the life of her “heartbeat”, as the police suspect.
“I am so sad,” said a distraught Njeri, the wife of Nakuru politician John Kamangara, who died in 2002.
“I still can’t believe my beloved third-born daughter is no more. She was the pillar and heartbeat of this homestead.”
GOOD SON
She said she last saw her daughter and grandchildren during the December holidays before the family flew out for a holiday in Dubai, Thailand, and Malaysia.
Wangui appears to have discreetly joined Kori on holiday at the same time, according to photos on her social media account.
Njeri, Wambui’s mother, had last seen Kori a year earlier, when he paid for installation of electricity at her home in Kandutura village in Visoi Ward, a few kilometres from Rongai in Nakuru County.
“He is a good son-in-law, a selfless and good-hearted person. At no time did Wambui call me to say she was experiencing marital problems,” she said.
A neighbour, Jane Wangui Mwangi, said Wambui had been a Sunday school teacher in her youth, and in adulthood supported the local church.
“She tiled AIC Kandutura last year and also bought chairs and constructed a gate for the church,” she said.
BUSINESS
Born on June 30, 1979, Wambui attended Kandutura Primary School in Visoi before joining St Columbus Secondary School in Nakuru Town for her secondary education and a computer college in Nairobi later on.
Her sister, Esther, said Wambui and Kori met in 2006 in Nakuru where he ran Sanga East Africa Limited, a pole treatment plant.
But the business encountered turbulence and they relocated to Nairobi, leaving a family mansion behind.
They put the house up for sale in 2015 before eventually opting to rent it out. In Nairobi, the family set up a hardware shop in Kahawa West, run and managed by Wambui.
It was at the hardware shop where Wambui met Wangui, whom she employed as an assistant before Kori transferred the girl to the treatment plant in Nakuru, where she worked as a secretary.
SACKED
Within no time, work-related conflicts ensued and Wangui, a second-year drop-out from the University of Nairobi, where she studied IT, was sacked.
In 2015 the girl rented a house in Thindigua on Kiambu Road, where she earned a living selling new clothes from the comfort of a white Toyota Allion.
A year later she moved to Fourways Junction, where she has been living in a Sh60,000-a-month two-bedroom apartment.
Within no time she started driving a white Mercedes Benz saloon car, just like Wambui’s. The car is now detained at Juja Police Station.
“Her life revolved around having fun and enjoying the expensive lifestyle financed by Kori,” a source, who requested anonymity said yesterday.
DETAINED
Detectives were last evening piecing together evidence based on statements from Wambui’s house girl, the suspects in custody, and CCTV footage from Homeland Inn and Fourways Junction.
Wangui and Kori are currently detained at Juja Police Station, where family and relatives have been streaming in to check on them.
Sources told the Nation Wangui’s family had hired a Nairobi-based criminal lawyer to represent her.
Reporting by Eric Wainaina, Mary Wambui, Francis Mureithi and Margaret Maina
