Detectives cite cultism, revenge in arson attack that killed 6
Detectives investigating the April 10 deaths of six members of one family in a house fire in Kandara, Murang’a County, have cited cultism and revenge as the key possible motives for the killings.
The other angles being investigated are malice, vandalism, an attempt to cover up another crime and mental illness (pyromania).
Ms Mary Wangui, 60, and her three daughters — Cecilia Gathoni, 30, Lucy Mumbi, 18, and Margaret Wanja, 15 — perished in the fire believed to have been deliberately started as they slept. Others who died in the fire were Ms Gathoni's two children, Jackline Wambui, 7, and Alvin Kiarie, 3.
Ms Alice Nyambura, the last-born sister of Ms Wangui, was arrested on suspicion that she was behind the fire.
On April 11, detectives asked Kandara Senior Resident Magistrate Eric Mutunga to continue holding her for 21 days. She will be arraigned on May 3, when her case will be mentioned.
Family estate row
Detectives now say they believe the family estate, valued at Sh2.3 billion, is at the centre of the great enmity in the polygamous family that has 21 siblings.
Around the time of the suspected arson attack, Ms Wangui had been accused by the suspect of stealing her phone. She had in turn accused the suspect of stealing inheritance documents from her.
"It is established that the family's father, Mr Njoroge Kung'u, who died in 2000, had amassed great wealth. With [a majority of his] children being semi-literate, the levels of engagement in sharing out the heritage has been crudely confrontational. The family has disintegrated and is characterised by factional wars," reads the preliminary investigative report by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
‘Suspicious faith’
In profiling the suspect, whom the report describes as "carrying 95 per cent of suspected culpability", the sleuths say "she is believed to be a member of a suspicious faith, with flawed temperaments and who kept on threatening Ms Wangui and the children who died in the arson attack".
To that end, the detectives say they are relying on the mandatory mental test that all capital crime suspects are subjected to in order to ascertain whether she was in her right mind when the arson was executed.
"We are also profiling the activities of the faith that is linked to her to establish what is its faith and doctrines after it emerges that it might be a cult that could have prompted her to execute an occult benediction against the victims," the DCI report reads.
The house in Nguthuru village, Kandara where six family members died in an arson attack on April 10, 2022. One suspect is in police custody.
Jealousy
The malice angle is said to be a "possibility that out of jealousy, the suspect designed the arson".
The two sisters were living in the permanent house that had five bedrooms and a sitting room.
The suspect lived in two rooms with her two daughters while her elder sister lived with her two daughters in two other rooms. The visiting Ms Gathoni and her two daughters slept in Ms Wangui's bedroom.
Detectives have profiled the house as "one that could only be accessed through one front door".
For that reason, the investigations, after ascertaining that the fire started around 1am, concluded that "it was started by a person(s) inside the house".
Nine occupants
To narrow down on suspects, the detectives say that "at the time of fire, the house had nine occupants, six now dead, and the suspect in custody together with her two daughters aged 16 and 12".
They say they have "recorded the statements of the two minors and where the findings so far absolve them from blame".
They add that they are "not investigating an accident but a fire that was deliberately started with an intention to cause maximum damage since the door to the victims [rooms] had been locked from the outside".
The report says that the fire had all the characteristics of arson "since the colour of smoke and ashes deduced presence of accelerants, the scene lacked accidental causes, burn patterns looked stage-managed and concentration of damage looking intended”.
Insights from post-mortems
The investigators say they will gain more insights into the crime after post-mortems on the bodies are conducted.
"Post-mortems will give us more ground to know if the deceased were first attacked, clobbered or any other primary form [of attack] before they were found dead in the fire. This will give us a clear picture on whether there was a singular attacker or plural," the DCI report reads.
The sleuths, in tying up their case, will get forensic analysis on the clothes, petrol and used matchsticks that were collected from the suspect in custody.
"We will also liaise with telephony service providers to help us identify all the active phone signals that were in the homestead at the time the fire erupted," the report says.
No burial date
This came as family members said they had not set a burial date for the departed.
"We cannot hold a family meeting, because the bad blood that circulates around us is so toxic. The police are yet to release our father's compound, since it has been under armed police guard as a crime scene. Culturally, burial meetings for daughters outside marriage are held either in their private homes or their father's compound," said George Kung'u, the eldest in the family.
Kandara police boss Michael Mwaura said the family will be granted custody of the bodies once post-mortems are conducted.
"We will also release the scene to family custody once we are through with investigations. We will also provide security to the family members as they meet to deliberate on burials," he said.
Separated from spouse
While Ms Wangui had separated from her husband 20 years before her death, Ms Nyambura, the suspect in custody, separated from her spouse four years ago and lived with her now dead sister in the house of their late father.
The family patriarch, Kung'u, had two wives — Ms Alice Wagikuyu, who died in 2008 after she was hit by her cow, and Rebecca Wambui, who is surviving and is the mother of both Ms Wangui and Ms Nyambura.
After quarrels between her daughters became more confrontational, Rebecca Wambui left the house her husband had left her and moved in with one of her sons.
The late Kung’u’s wives bore 20 children combined.
Kung’u once worked as a transport manager at the Del Monte fruit processing firm and had accumulated immense wealth when he died.
He is said to have owned more than 150 acres of developed land in Nairobi, Kiambu and Murang’a counties, more than 20 transport vehicles and five tractors, as well as commercial buildings and shares in listed companies. BY DAILY NATION
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