Exclusive: US-based man murdered in Nyamira had two wives, documents reveal
New information has come to light in the brutal murder of American-Kenyan citizen Edward Morema Nyagechi, 65, and his Kenyan wife, Ms Mong’ina Morema, 60, in their home in Nyamakoroto, Nyamira County.
Nairobi News reports that Morema was living with a woman he had married in the US, identified in documents as Irene Pamela Omayio, while still married to Mong’ina in Kenya.
Documents in our possession show that Mr Morema and Ms Omayio married on May 15, 2015, in Minnesota and owned property together in Anoka County, Minnesota.
The two wed in Olmsted County in Minnesota, USA, and were issued a marriage certificate number 150522E5BAG.
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Ms Omayio went ahead and added the name Morema to hers. However, for his first wife, he gave her his surname, Nyagechi (the family name).
The second marriage in the USA occurred just four years after Mr Morema, divorced Ms Jill Lucille Nyagechi, 64.
Mr Morema divorced his first American wife, Ms Nyagechi, in 2011 after 8 years of marriage.
In court documents that are in our possession, Mr Morema filed for a dissolution of the marriage without children from Ms Nyagechi on June 6, 2011.
The case location was in Hennepin County and the Judicial officer who covered the matter is Justice Burke Kevin S.
It has also emerged that the late Mr Morema and Ms Omayio co-own a property in the county of Anoka in Minnesota, USA.
The couple, both US citizens, filed for the ownership of the homestead on June 11, 2019, they did not issue any foreign contacts.
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The Department of Revenue, which taxes the properties, is from Minnesota and the document indicates that they bought it for Sh 35, 996, 669.
Nairobi News, on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, contacted Ms Omayio but she was not available on the phone.
The death of Mr Morema left locals at his Nyamakoroto village home with a lot of questions that lacked answers.
On the other hand, police in Nyamira are now trying to piece together the last moments of the couple who were killed inside their mansion, which has now been labeled as a crime scene.
Already, two people, including a house girl and a farm hand, have been grilled over the brutal death of the couple and recorded statements with the police.
In their narrative to the police, the duo said that on the night Mr Morema and Ms Mong’ina died, there was a stranger who had visited them.
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The couple had dinner alongside the visitor as they held discussions, and the house girl excused herself and went to sleep, leaving behind the couple and their guest.
The farm hand, said that he rarely enters the house, and when he was served supper, he ate, closed the gate, and retired to bed after a busy day on the farm.
Masaba North Sub-County Police boss Robert Ndambiri in an earlier interview, said that investigations into the matter had started.
According to Mr Ndambiri, the deceased persons seemed to have been hit with a blunt object on their heads.
The bodies also had stab wounds on other parts of the body.
“We are trying to establish how the attackers got into their house because there was no breakage. We have arrested two people as we commence our investigations. They are a housemaid who used to live with the deceased in their single-storey house and a farm hand,” Mr Ndambiri said.
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