- The High Court convicted her of murder and sent her to death row in 2018.
- But the Court of Appeal has now saved her from the death row, replacing the sentence with 35 years in jail.
Image: FILE
Falling in love, marrying and having children, chasing life together and ageing gracefully is the dream of anyone with family ambitions.
It was the same for James Ritho. He fell in love with Mary Njoki and for 30 years of their marriage they had children and became a couple of means.
But the union turned into a hell in 2015. On an evening of January 14, 2015, Njoki with others killed Ritho in the bedroom of their bungalow in Kangemi, Nairobi.
The High Court convicted her of murder and sent her to death row in 2018.
But the Court of Appeal has now saved her from the death row, replacing the sentence with 35 years in jail.
On the night of slaughter, the couple was alone in their five-bedroom house along Marenga Road.
Their son George Ritho and his wife Jane Wambui lived a few metres away. That evening, the son arrived home after work, had dinner with his family, and decided to check on his parents.
After staying with them for about 10 minutes, he left at about 8pm, telling his mother that he would pass by later to collect milk as was his routine.
At about 11pm, George passed by and saw his parents’ kitchen lights on. The mother gave him milk and he left.
At around 3.45am that night as the son and his wife were asleep, the mother came calling.
She told them that they had been attacked by three people who kidnapped the father.
The son contacted other family members all went to Kabete police station and reported the incident.
Police noted blood stains in Ritho's compound near the gate and in the bedroom.
The police noted that the mattress in the master bedroom looked new and decided to search for the mattress that could have been on that bed previously.
Relatives found a bloodstained mattress in another room and showed it to the police. The whereabouts of the body of the old man were not known.
It was found in the following day at Lukenya quarry in Machakos county.
In court, Njoki denied killing her husband and narrated how the attack happened. But prosecutors convinced the court the evidence available showed she arranged the murder.
She stated that indeed on the material day, her son visited them in the evening before going to close his business and thereafter, passed by to collect milk.
She stated that the deceased had gone to bed by the time the son returned to collect the milk. However, as she went to bed she met a strange man on the stairs of their house who had covered his face, who immediately hit her on the chest and she fell screaming.
“The stranger then took her to the toilet and locked her therein whilst threatening to kill both the appellant and the deceased. He left her in the toilet but came back for her and took her to the bedroom where she found the deceased bleeding having been assaulted,” she narrated.
The attackers continued to assault them demanding money, she claimed, and that they were thereafter taken downstairs and bundled in the boot of a vehicle that had been parked outside and driven off.
“The vehicle stopped at a place called Welcome and she was removed from the boot and left there while the deceased was taken away in the vehicle. She screamed for help and a man came by who escorted her home telling her not to report the matter to the police as yet but to wait in case the kidnappers called demanding some ransom.”
She testified further that after reporting the incident to the police, police officers later came to the house and found some bloodstains from the deceased’s bleeding.
They also found a mattress with bloodstains in another room where the deceased had been taken while the attackers were looking for money.