Lawrence Simon Warunge, the main suspect in the killing of four family members and their mason has been found mentally unfit to stand trial.
Prosecutor Reinson Ingonga told Kiambu chief magistrate Patricia Gichohi that a mental assessment conducted on Monday at Mathari National Hospital showed Warunge is not mentally fit.
Ingonga requested that they be allowed to hold the suspect for 30 more days so Warunge can undergo further medical check-ups before a decision on whether he can take the plea is made.
He also applied that the second suspect Sarah Muthoni be released under section 87 (a) and to be made a prosecution witness.
Muthoni is Warunge’s girlfriend. Both did not object to Reinson’s applications.
Gichohi granted the application and put Warunge under police custody in Nairobi. The matter will be mentioned on March 1.
On Monday, only Muthoni appeared before the court. The prosecution said Warunge could not appear as he was set to undergo another mental assessment test.
Muthoni’s mother Tabitha Wanjiru told reporters outside the courtroom that it was through prayers that her daughter was released.
“I thank God that my daughter is free. We have been praying because I did not want to believe that my daughter could be capable of the things she is being accused of,” Wanjiru said.
She said she learnt about her daughter’s predicament after people came to her home asking for Muthoni.
She said her daughter started selling charcoal after completing her high school studies before relocating to Thika where she sold boiled eggs and sausages.
“I have never met the young man,” she said of Warunge. “Probably, Sarah met him at Thika but my daughter has never had a criminal record.”
She said she was optimistic that the truth will be known and her daughter will be cleared of any wrongdoing.
Warunge has confessed that he killed his father Nicholas Njenga Warunge, mother Annie and brothers Maxwell and Christian and their mason James Kinyanjui.
Detectives handling the case have reconstructed the scene of the murder and say it corroborates the confession.
They have revisited the scene twice in the company of the suspects.
The two suspects were last week produced in court in Kiambu where police made an application to hold them for 14 days pending investigations.
Warungu claimed, in his confession, that he chose to eliminate the four members of his nuclear family because they were talking ill of him behind his back.
He told detectives that he had initially planned to kill everyone including his two sisters who were in school at the time the murders were carried out.
Warunge said he had initially planned to commit the murders on January 5, the day the two sisters reported to school.
Police are puzzled at how he managed to kill the five without resistance. A postmortem showed they had multiple injuries.
Warunge was arrested in Kabete area after being on the run for three days.