Lonely exit for retired Kamiti hangman

By FRANCIS NGIGE

The man who was Kenya’s last and longest serving hangman at Kamiti Maximum Security Prison finally bowed to the ‘call of the beckon’ in a manner most unlike the procedure he followed to execute condemned convicts.

Kirugumi wa Wanjuki, 86, died on Monday in a small village tucked in the slopes of the cold Aberdare Ranges after what was suspected to be a pneumonia attack.

In grim irony, the appointment with his creator came at 2.30am on Monday, which would have been the same time he started preparing those he would execute.

But unlike many rural homes where relatives and friends turn up to mourn a departed neighbour, his homestead was deserted and deathly quiet on Wednesday.

The only home he knew was a rickety, crumbling mud house that leans precariously close to collapsing. Kirugumi had retired into a life tainted with stigma with many neighbours shunning him, apparently for his reputation. He spent his old age years drawing a meagre pension. Neighbours who spoke yesterday said every time he spoke he made the subject of his work as a hangman his pet topic.

"He told the story to all who cared to listen to him," a neighbour, Geoffrey Nduati said.

"Everybody in this village knew the mzee but few wanted to get very close to him," said Ndegwa Mahinda.

Kirugumi’s only son Ndung’u Wanjuki was saddened by the death of his father whom he said had been ailing for a long time.

Ndung’u said Kirugumi passed away at home only three days after being discharged from the Provincial General hospital in Nyeri.

For 13 years, Kirugumi was the hangman at Kamiti Prison, the only maximum security facility where he sent condemned inmates to the gallows.

Sharp memory

In an interview with The Standard earlier this year, the elderly man had a sharp memory and could recall nearly all major events in his illustrious career.

The man said before he joined the prison service at the age of 37, he was a tracker for professional game hunters and then the police in their hunt for Mau Mau freedom fighters.

He was stationed at Kangubiri Works Camp for seven years before he joined the Prisons Department in 1961 and was posted to Kamiti Prison.

At Kamiti he was trained to become a hangman and replaced an Asian. He related how he interacted with death row inmates before he executed them.

The old man was the last man the condemned people saw and chatted with before they met their death.

"I got so used to hanging people that at some moment I thought that killing people was as simple as slaughtering a chicken," he said in the interview.

In one of his first duties involving an Asian of Kenyan origin, Wanjuki recalled how he led the man to the execution trap just a few yards from the cells and stood him on the trap doors with a noose round his neck.

"I put a black hood on his head and led him to the gallows. He continued to cry and beg for mercy, but no one said a word to him. It had to be done and it was our task to execute," the man said.

Yesterday silence hung over his compound like it must have done in subsequent occasions every time he would close the gallows door after an execution.