50-year-old man who set wife on fire after disagreement arrested in Kericho

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) based in Kericho have arrested and are currently holding a murder suspect said to have set ablaze his wife following a domestic disagreement.

Robert Kipkorir Tanui, 50, was nabbed on the Kericho-Kisumu road while boarding a matatu to an unknown destination by the sleuths who have been trailing him since the October 4, 2020 incident.

According to police reports, the suspect quarrelled with his wife, 34-year-old Emmy Chepkoech Mitei, forcing her to leave their matrimonial home in Kobel for her father’s home in Seanin village of Konoin, Bomet County.

On October 3, 2020, she reportedly requested her father and a few elders to accompany her back to her matrimonial home and help her make up with her husband but he (husband) is said to have locked himself in the house when they arrived and refused to talk to them.

They hence went back to Seanin and that fateful night after dinner, however, the suspect allegedly sneaked into the house and attacked his wife – who was a deputy headteacher at a local school – and doused her in petrol before setting her ablaze and disappearing after locking the door from outside.

Neighbours who heard her screams responded and managed to put out the fire before rushing the woman to Litein Mission Hospital.

She was later transferred to the Intensive Care Unit of Tenwek Hospital where a doctor’s report indicated that she had suffered 97 per cent burns on her body. She succumbed to her injuries on October 7, 2020 at the same facility.

The deceased’s sister, Susan Mitei, previously told the Nation that Emmy had “been having issues in her marriage for a long time. He husband has over the years been violent and irresponsible, she always complained that he did not help in taking care of their seven children.”

The suspect is presently under lawful custody awaiting arraignment.