An elderly couple in Likuyani sub-county is nursing injuries inflicted on them by their son in-law, who attacked them over differences with their daughter.
Jane Kiptum said she was in the kitchen preparing supper on Wednesday night when Daniel Kosgei struck. She lost two fingers as she tried to shield him from cutting her head.
“He waylaid me on the dark outside the kitchen with a panga. He mistook me for my daughter since we look alike and pounced on me. He came to kill but thank God I am still alive,” she said.
After injuring Kiptum, the attacker went into the main house hoping to find his wife, Mercy Chemaiyo.
He, instead, met his father in-law Jackson Simatwa, who was leaving the bedroom to respond to the screams of help by his wife.
He slashed him several times before taking off and hid in a nearby maize plantation. Chemaiyo escaped the attack as she had gone to answer a call of nature when her husband struck.
“I was relaxing in the bedroom waiting for supper when I heard noise from the outside, I woke up and walked out of the bedroom and on reaching the sitting room I met my son in-law with a panga in the hand and without saying a word, he attacked me cutting me on both hands,” said Simatwa, 78.
He was arrested by villagers who handed him to Matunda police station.
Simatwa said that early in the day he had found a sack stuffed with clothes, blankets and sheets dropped in his compounds. His daughter identified the items as belonging to her estranged husband.
Chemaiyo, since marrying Kiplagat five years ago, she has never lived in peace as he has been beating her regularly.
She said she decided to leave with her two children amd return to her parents a month ago after the husband started selling household items to get money to buy alcohol only to return home drunk and beat her up.
“I have severally tried to resolve the problem by engaging elders from both sides to no avail,” she said.
