As investigations into the brutal murder of businesswoman Wambui Kori narrow down, it is emerging that Judy Wangui might be the one who committed the murder at her apartment at Fourways Junction Estate.
Multiple reports indicate that Wangui hit Wambui on her head with a pressure cooker nine times. She died of brain concussion, the report concluded, with the skull having been crushed by between two and seven centimetres.
A potential State witness identified as Mathenge said that he went to Wangui’s residence at Fourways Junction at 00:07 on her invitation, almost six hours after Wangui and Wambui Kori arrived there and started arguing over the love triangle involving Joseph Kori.
Wambui was apparently bitter after she found her husband’s photos hanging on the wall in the house with furnishings identical to those in their family home at Safari Park Gardens Estate.
A detective privy to the investigations said Wambui reportedly demanded that Wangui surrenders the logbook of her car — a Mercedez Benz identical to hers — saying she had heard her husband bought her the car.
A fight ensued and a knife that the two wrestled over was among the items recovered at the thicket around the Tatu City area. Police have taken the knife together with other items for forensic examination.
It is then that Wangui, according to Mr Mathenge, rushed to the kitchen and picked a pressure cooker which she hit the deceased with on the head before strangling her with her hands.
She then took bed sheets and covers, wrapped the body and placed it inside the kitchen. Police suspect this may have happened at 20:20 hrs. According to the CCTV footage retrieved from Fourways Junction, Wangui left the estate at 21:54 using Wambui’s car to Homeland Inn where the two women had earlier revelled in the afternoon.
According to police sources she wanted to pick a Toyota Allion, registration number KCE which had been hired out by Mr Mathenge and which she had left there as Wambui drove her to Fourways Junction. However, security guards declined to allow her to leave with the car because she did not have a gate pass.
“She parked the Mercedes car behind Homeland Inn and used a taxi to return to Fourways Junction where she arrived at 23:00 hours,” a detective said .
It was around that time she is reported to have called Mathenge to her residence. He told detectives that Wangui had called him earlier in the day promising him some work later in the night.
Mathenge, who owns a car hire company, drove to Wangui’s residence at 00:07 hrs using a Toyota Noah, registration series KCK.
The vehicle had been missing since before it was driven to Juja police station by someone who had hired it after learning it was being looked for by the police.
Driving in the Toyota Noah, the two returned to Homeland Inn but the security guards stood their ground. Wangui picked the deceased‘s car and they both returned to Fourways at 01:28 hrs with the two cars. By this time, the two, according to Mathenge’s account to police, had agreed on where the body would be disposed of and how they would ferry it.
“The Mercedes Benz was driven near the apartment stairs and, according to what Mathenge has said, they both carried the body from the kitchen and placed it in the back,” a detective said on Friday.
A baby seat fixed at the back seat of Wangui’s car was removed and placed at the passenger’s seat next to the driver to accommodate the body. Using the Kiambu-Kamiti-Ruiru Road the two cars followed each other and at a roadblock at the Kamiti road junction, Mathenge’s car was searched but not Wangui’s.
Mathenge said they drove to Mugutha, where the body was found on Sunday, January 27. Wangui contemplated plunging the car with the body to the dam but later changed her mind.
While on their way back, they stopped at Gitambaya between Ruiru and Kiambu where, according to Mathenge, Wangui threw away the murder weapon, the beddings which had been used to wrap the body and the baby’s seat in a thicket.
They then proceeded to wards Githunguri through the Kirigit-Riabai Road where, along the way, they threw away a blood-stained carpet before proceeding to Kwa-Maiko Trading Centre where they abandoned the deceased’s car which was recovered two days later.
