The court in Naivasha on Thursday, March 2 sentenced Beatrice Mwende, a mathematics teacher from Naivasha to life in prison for killing her four children.
While making the ruling, Naivasha High Court Judge Grace Nzioka dismissed Mwende’s defence that demons possessed her when she killed her three daughters and a son.
“Her excuse that some evil spirits possessed her when she committed the act, cannot be authenticated in court. She is, therefore, sentenced to life imprisonment,” Justice Nzioka ruled.
Mwende, who is 44 years old at first denied committing the murder only to confess that she did so back in 2022 after she consulted her lawyer.
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Her children were Melody Warigia (8 years old), Willy Macharia (6 years old), Samantha Njeri (4 years old) and Whitney Nyambura (2 years old).
Mwende strangled the four at her Kabati Estate home in Naivasha on June 26, 2020.
While delivering the ruling virtually Justice Nzioka said that mental tests conducted on Mwende indicated that she was of sound mind when she committed the murders.
Prosecutor Nelly Maingi had told the court that on June 26, 2020, Mwende started by strangling her youngest child, 2-year-old Whitney Nyambura, before proceeding to murder the remaining three.
She, thereafter, slept in the same house and fled the following morning (June 27, 2020).
That morning, she called her relatives and informed them that she had killed her children and was seeking their (relatives’) forgiveness.
The prosecution told the court that Mwende was arrested later on June 27, 2020, at a lodging in Kayole Estate, Naivasha Sub-County.
“The post-mortem report indicated that the minors died as a result of strangulation,” prosecutor Nelly Maingi told the court.
