Charles Ngunjiri Njeri was a high school student when he slit his mother Gladys Njeri’s throat on the night of September 11, 2011 in Gachuiro village, Mathira West District in Nyeri County.

Neighbours told the court that Njeri would wail at night without any reason and so on that night, they thought it was her usual wailing. Unfortunately, that was her last night alive.

SCREAMING

Neighbour in Gachuiro village found her lifeless body in the morning in her sitting room with her throat slit.

On the night of September 11, the deceased was heard screaming “My son Charles is killing me.” After a while, she went mum, and the neighbours thought she had slept.

The suspect, her son Ngunjiri, was arrested and charged, but he denied the charges.

The postmortem report showed that Njeri’s head had almost been severed from the rest of the body, and her death was caused by severe loss of blood resulting from the throat injury.

According to court documents, the relationship between the two was not as good as Ngunjiri blamed his mother for not taking care of him.

In his statement, he mentioned that he depended on his grandmother for his upkeep as his mother did not help in anything.

The court documents state that the relationship worsened in June 2011 and Ngunjiri moved out of his mother’s home and rented a house at Ihwagi shopping centre.

FATEFUL NIGHT

The two reconciled but in September 2011, during the reopening of the third term, Ngunjiri either misplaced or lost money meant for school fee which his mother gave him.

That prompted a fight as Njeri asked his son to leave his house and fend for himself. Ngungiri did leave for Karatine but returned to his mother’s place around 7:30pm.

When Njeri came home and found his son, she started shouting at him, wishing death upon him. It is then that the accused got annoyed and started hitting her.

The deceased picked a knife to defend herself, but the accused overpowered her, snatched the knife and slit her throat. On realizing that he had killed his mother, Ngunjiri fled the crime scene.

Ngunjiri told the court that he had no intention of killing his mother and the incident that led to her death was caused by anger.

Making the ruling, Justice Ngaah Jairus said Ngunjiri had no reason to slit his mother’s throat since he had already overpowered her and even taken the knife from her.

“The inevitable conclusion that I can only come to is to hold the accused culpable for the murder of his mother. I, therefore, find him guilty of the offence of murder as charged,” Justice Ngaah Jairus ruled on Thursday.

– NairobiNews