- The deceased’s body had cuts on the arms and legs. Next to the body was a broken stool and a jembe, as well as a broken chair.
- Upon arrest and interrogation by local chief, Ouma said “shetani alinidanganya" (the devil misled me).
Image: FILE
That Elijah Ouma and his wife Lilian Auma would be involved in a noisy fight every night was not news in their village but on September it was different.
"I want to kill somebody," was the shout of Ouma in the dead of the night as he walked back to his house.
Little did his parents and neighbour know that the person he would find to kill was his wife.
Ouma worked as a farmhand at another home in their village, where he also lived, as his wife and children lived in his house which was in the same compound as his parents.
But this family never enjoyed peace. The man frequently quarrelled with and beat his wife but reconciliation would ensue, making them continue living together.
So frequent was the squabbling and violence between them been that no one would respond when the fights and screaming happened. Villagers and neighbours got used to them.
But the night of September 3, 2014, the fights and screaming happened and it was final. That night Ouma came back from his working station and started his routine shouting, pacing around his parent’s home until his mother woke up to check on him.
The old woman saw him kick the door and called his wife who was asleep and could not open the door.
He kicked the door and got in, went straight to the bedroom and started beating up his wife who was a sleep. The violence led to Auma's death.
Ouma was was apprehended the following day, and was lated convicted in 2016 and sentenced to life.
But he got a reprieve late last month after a Court of Appeal voided his death sentence, sending his file back to the High Court for fresh direction on his re-sentencing.
The March 15 decision said that the High Court did not allow a wife batterer time to give his mitigation before he was sentenced.
"To justify a death sentence the court should have spoken to the mitigating factors, showing in black and white what the court considered. In the absence of any demonstration of factors that could have led to such a sentence then the appellant was prejudiced," the judgement said.
Ouma’s mother was the star witness for the prosecution, telling court that she saw him kick the door to get into the house and once in, he started beating his wife.
“[The old mother] then ran out [of the home] and onto the road screaming for help but no one responded,” the court papers read.
“The witness then remained outside and hid in the bushes. Just before daybreak; she went into [her son’s] house and found [Auma] lying on the floor covered with a bed sheet.”
The deceased’s body had cuts on the arms and legs. Next to the body was a broken stool and a jembe, as well as a broken chair.
Upon arrest and interrogation by local chief, Ouma said “shetani alinidanganya" (the devil misled me).
The postmortem revealed fractures on both bones of the right and left legs and the right lower arm, multiple cut wounds on the head and multiple bruising on face and trunk.
“The significant finding on internal examination was a fracture on the left side of the head which resulted in bleeding within the skull; the second spinal bone was dislocated from the third one while the spinal cord was compressed at the neck; the cause of death was severe head injury and spinal compression that resulted from fracture and dislocation,” the court papers read.