Childless woman kills co-wife’s three children – PHOTOS
By ELIZABETH OJINAA woman on Sunday stabbed three children to death before committing suicide at Dago village in the border area between Kisumu and Vihiga counties.
Relatives of the deceased said Jacinta Atieno served the children of her co-wife porridge with ripe bananas before stabbing them.
Relatives suspect the she had also laced the porridge with a toxic substance before serving it to the siblings – two boys aged two and four years, and a girl, seven.
The suspected killer then hanged herself.
Eric Otieno, a relative of the children said, the incident happened at midday after the biological mother of the three children left home for church.
DANGLING
Hellen Atieno did not know her children had been murdered until she decided to check on her co-wife and found the children dead with stab wounds in their necks. Her co-wife was dangling from the rafters of her house.
The dead woman was the second wife and had no children of her own.
The husband to the women reportedly works in Nairobi. He married them and built them houses in one homestead in the village.
The children’s grandfather, Henry Ogonda, was yet to come to terms with the incident.
As word about the incident spread, angry villagers came and pelted the body of the killer with stones, perhaps to express their anger or to chase away bad omens.
They demanded that the body of killer be taken away through a makeshift gate. Others wanted to set the body on fire. But the police intervened.
ESCAPED DEATH
Mr Otieno said the eldest child managed to escape the horrible death after he refused to enter his step-mothers house for porridge.
“It is by luck the eldest boy managed to escape the incident. Otherwise the step-mother would have killed him too,” he said .
Mr Otieno said that this is the third time the woman had attempted to kill the family.
“Just a week ago she was found in possession of five litres of petrol in her house after making threats about killing her co-wife’s family. Unfortunately no one took her seriously,” said Mr Otieno