Kiambu murders: Court told prime suspect Warunge unfit for trial
Lawrence Njoroge Warunge, 22, the prime suspect in the brutal killings of his four family members and a farmhand in Kiambu, is mentally unfit to stand trial, the medical assessment report done at Nairobi’s Mathari National Teaching and Referral Hospital shows.
The report tabled Tuesday before Kiambu Chief Magistrate Patricia Gichohi by the prosecution team also shows that Warunge has a history of smoking marijuana and drinking spirits and has paranoid delusions.
“Lawrence is mentally unstable and is not fit to plead,” the report reads.
The report further says that the suspect is suffering from an induced psychosis which is a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.
On family history, the report says Warunge had a frosty relationship with his father, whom he killed alongside other family members.
Following the report, the court ordered that Warunge be taken back to Mathari Hospital where the medical exam test was done so that he can start his treatment.
His case will be mentioned in court on March 1, 2021.
More tests
This means justice for the victims may take longer until subsequent tests prove that the suspect is mentally fit to take plea for murder charges.
Warunge an IT student at Mount Kenya University, is accused of killing his father, Nicholas Njoroge Warunge, his mother Ann Wanjiku, their adopted nephew Maxwell Njenga, his brother Christian Njenga Njoroge and farmhand James Kinyanjui Wambaa.
In another new development, it was a reprieve for Ms Sarah Muthoni — Warunge’s girlfriend and his co-accused — after the court acquitted her. She will now be a State witness.
Ms Muthoni had been detained at Muthaiga Police Station since she was arrested in connection with the macabre murders.
State witness
Her release came after an application by the prosecution, which sought to turn her into a State witness, was adopted by the court in order to unravel the mystery murders, with detectives privy to the investigations saying there is a probability that there were more people who aided the prime suspect and that he may be trying to cover up for them by saying he did it alone.
The four family members were buried in a mass grave at their ancestral land in Kiambu, almost two weeks ago, in an emotional send-off.