Why I killed Constable Pauline Wangari, suspect Joseph Ochieng reveals

The chief suspect in the killing of 24-year-old Pauline Wangari, a Murang’a prison warder, has revealed what transpired on the fateful night.

Joseph Ochieng’ told DCI officers in Murang’a that Monday, May 13, 209.was the first time he met face-to-face with Wangari.

the 24-year-old had initially been communicating with Wangari through Facebook.

“He described his relationship with the suspect as ‘just a friendship’,” a detective — who spoke to Citizen Digital in confidence — said.

Ochieng who was born and bred in Kisumu claims to be an artiste.

He told detectives how travelled from Nairobi that morning to meet the deceased for the first time.

According to the suspect, an argument with Wangari ensued after she refused to take hard drugs which he had taken with him to her rented house in Kiharu, Murang’a County.

Prior to the tiff, the two are reported to have spent a significant part of Monday evening indoors allegedly smoking bhang, the suspect told the DCI.

According to Ochieng’s testimony, it was during the heated argument that he started strangling her and she fell down with a thud.

“Sent into panic mode, the suspect narrated how he reached for a kitchen knife and stabbed her in the chest, neck and abdomen, and, thereafter, put the knife firmly in her grip in a bid to make it look like Wangari had killed herself,” said the DCI officer.

In his testimony, the suspect further claimed prior to the quarrel, he and Pauline Wangari got intimate something a medical examination on Wangari is yet to authenticate.

Sources indicate that the suspect was captured on CCTV cameras entering Pauline Wangari’s house at 9pm on Monday, and he left at 3am on Tuesday.

The cameras further showed the suspect carrying the deceased’s bag, her phone and a TV set.

Ochieng was arrested on Thursday at 5pm May 16, 2019 at a roadblock placed at Kipsitet area in Kericho County.

The suspect was heading to Kisumu in a vehicle owned by a middle-aged woman identified as Mary Amollo Olisa, who has since been arrested.

Another suspect identified as Namukura claimed that Ochieng approached him on Tuesday, May 14 at his Nairobi house.

Appearing before Murang’a Resident Magistrate Sheila Nyaga on Friday, May 17, he said Ochieng tried to convince him into buying a TV set that “he [Ochieng] had recently acquired”.

Namukura, who further claims he knew Ochieng one month ago, said he declined to purchase the TV set.

Mary Olisa, on the other hand, told the court that she is Namukura’s cousin, and that Ochieng had requested to travel with her in her vehicle, given she was heading to Kisumu from Nairobi on Thursday.

Olisa said she allowed Ochieng to ride in her car, not knowing he was a murder suspect on the run.

Pauline Wangari, a constable at Murang’a GK Prison, was found naked on her bed early Wednesday, with her entire bedding soaked in blood.

She had been stabbed multiple times in the head, abdomen and neck.

In her lifeless state, a roll of bhang was — ostensibly — placed between her lips, and a kitchen knife firmly clutched in her right hand.

“Her body was photographed and moved to the Murang’a County Government morgue awaiting postmortem,” the police report reads.