The main suspect in the murder of Muranga GK Prison Pauline Wangari has revealed to the police what led him to commit the crime.
Joseph Ochieng was arrested in Kericho, as he was fleeing after murdering Pauline on Monday night. Police tracked his phone number and set up a road block at Kipsitet area, where they arrested him together with two others.
In his statement to the police, Ochieng confessed to killing Pauline, adding that this was in fact the first time they met face to face.
He told DCI officers in Muranga that they had been communicating through Facebook, and that they were ‘just friends’.
He said that on the fateful night, they got into an argument after she refused to take hard drugs, which he had brought with him to her house in Kiharu estate, Muranga. He revealed that they had spent most of the evening smoking bhang.
It was during this argument that Ochieng started strangling her until she fell down.
“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,” a DCI officer revealed.
CCTV footage showed a man entering her house at 9pm, and leaving at 3am on Tuesday, carrying a TV. The man was said to have a tattoo on his neck.
The two other suspects arrested with Ochieng have been identified as a friend and a cousin to the friend, going by the names Namukura and Mary Amollo Olisa respectively.
Namukura revealed that Ochieng, whom he has only known for 1 month, approached him to buy a TV from him, which he declined.
Mary said that she was to travel to Kisumu on Thursday, and Ochieng requested they travel with him. She agreed not knowing he was a murder suspect.
Upon the arrest of Ochieng, the state freed and withdrew all charges against Peterson Njiru, Pauline’s boyfriend who had been arrested on Thursday.
