Nairobi Lawyer Paul Magu, pastor had affair before bizarre deaths, mum tells court

Pastor Ann Nyoro at the Kiambu law courts during the hearing of a case in which she is charged with helping Paul Magu to kill himself. (PHOTO.FIDELIS KABUNYI/ STANDARD)

City lawyer Paul Magu may have had a second family with a female cleric accused of aiding in his death and that of his young family, a Kiambu court heard on Thursday.

Testifying in a case in which Pastor Ann Nyoro is charged with aiding the deaths of the family of five, Magu’s mother Keziah Wambui said her late son may have had an illicit affair with the cleric as she had bumped into them on several occasions.

 “I met them on different occasions at the Blue Post Hotel and in Gatundu and after observing how he had changed, I concluded that the two were more than friends,” Wambui said.

She told Principal Magistrate Justus Kituku that her son had stopped visiting her in 2012 and had become distant.

“He even stopped making calls to check on how we were doing. I believed he had a special attachment to Nyoro, so I kept off,” she said.

Nyoro, who is out on a Sh2 million bond, is facing two charges of aiding Magu to kill himself between November 23 and 25, 2015 at Makongeni in Thika, Kiambu County. She is also accused of having a hand in the death of Magu’s wife Lydia and their children Allen, 9, Ryan, 8 and Tiffany, 6.

She has denied these charges.

Wambui, a pastor at the Bethel Church in Thika, linked the deaths to a cult. She said she met and became friends with Nyoro in 2008 after they were introduced by Magu and Lydia.

But she ended the friendship in 2013 when worshippers at her church began to vomit and “fall down” after a sermon conducted by Nyoro.

Magu also relocated from Faith Evangelistic Ministries where he worshipped to Nyoro’s Showers of Praise Ministry.

Wambui said she learned about her son’s disappearance when she had gone to visit her daughter in Mombasa. She immediately took a flight back to Nairobi. Upon reaching her son’s home in Ruiru, she was told that the bodies of Magu, his wife Lydia and three children had been found in different locations.

Esther Wanjiru Njenga, Lydia’s sister, broke down while giving her testimony. Wanjiru told the court she had worked for the Magus for five years as a babysitter.

Esther Wanjiru Njenga, sister to late city lawyer Paul Magu's wife Lydia, testifying before a Kiambu court in a case in which Pastor Ann Nyoro has been charged with helped Paul Magu to kill himself. (PHOTO: FIDELIS KABUNYI/ STANDARD)

She told the court that a few days before her sister’s death, she had had a strange dream. 

She said her sister told her in the dream: “Esther, I wish I was like you. You do not have a lot of money or property like me and God provides you with everything, including happiness, unlike myself who is unhappy”.

 Wanjiru said she fell out with the Magus after she was excommunicated from the Showers Church for not listening to the prophets of God. She was also accused of causing disunity in the church.

She said Nyoro and Lydia were very close friends and together with Magu, travelled to Nigeria to buy annointment water for Showers Church.