Man suspected of killing wife, her friend with poisoned food arrested

The suspect who killed his wife and her friend after poisoning their food has been arrested.

Sebastian Kamande, 28, was arrested on Friday in a dramatic turn of events along the Embu-Nairobi highway as he attempted to flee from the DCI detectives.

Kamande is said to have served poisoned food to his wife Rahab Gathoni and her friend Abigael Gathoni, who had come visiting, before fleeing their Dandora home leaving their lifeless bodies sprawled on the floor.

According to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, this is yet another cold-blooded murder involving fighting couples.

The directorate said immediately the matter was reported via #Fichua hotline, detectives swung into action.

“As the investigators drawn from Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau (CRIB), DCI Nairobi Regional headquarters and Dandora closed in the suspect at his hideout in Dandora, he escaped the dragnet throwing a spanner in the works of the investigators,” the DCI narrated.

But determined to bring the suspect to justice, the detectives went back to the drawing board and using Cyber and Digital forensics services provided at the DCI National Forensic Laboratory, he was traced in Embu.

A lean team of three sleuths was dispatched towards Embu and as their hatchback descended the meandering highway towards the Sagana river bridge, the sleuths got wind that the suspect was on his way back to Nairobi, in a bid to outfox them.

“What followed was an immediate change of mission and a dramatic arrest along the highway as the suspect was ejected from a vehicle he had boarded, in a well-coordinated operation monitored at the Cyber and Digital forensics operations room,” said the DCI.

The suspect was then driven back to Dandora police station where he is being held.

DCI said preliminary investigations indicate that the couple’s relationship had run its course and efforts by the man’s parents to assist them to rekindle the dying ambers of their once blissful union had hit a dead end.

The detectives further established that last weekend, the couple had been invited by the man’s parents in Kakuzi, Murang’a County, in a bid to salvage their union.

But when they returned to their home in Dandora, the man’s wife who had since received a visitor declined to cook, prompting the disgruntled husband to venture into the kitchen.

It is during the preparation of the evening meal of rice and stew that the suspect laced it with an unspecified poison and served the two women before fleeing.

The suspect will be arraigned on Monday for the twin murders, contrary to section 203 as read with section 204 of the Penal Code.