Nairobi News

Joseph Kori Karue wept. He cried uncontrollably in court, perhaps still trying to come to terms with the dramatic turn of events that would change the course of his life forever.

It is alleged his mistress, the well-padded and leggy Judy Wangui aka “Danyque Gabriel” — going by her Facebook name — killed the mother of his children, Mary Wambui Kamangara.

It is every philandering man’s worst nightmare, I would imagine, that your mistress would be so daring and so deluded as to take matters in her own hands and clobber the Missus with a pressure cooker you probably bought and has perhaps in the past been used to whip you up some sizzling kuku kienyenji stew.

I watched him as he cried into the white handkerchief clasped in his hand, occasionally pausing to blow his nose, and then cry some more.

It is not a scene we are used to. It is always painful — for me especially — to see a man cry. Men are not supposed to cry, we are told. They are supposed to take pain and disappointment with determined stoicism.

Yet, even as I watched Kori wipe his bitter tears, I could not bring myself to pity the man. Instead, I seethed with rage.

‘WOMAN EATER’

Joseph Kori, to use the words of Justice James Wakiaga, is the ultimate “woman eater”. Like many seasoned woman eaters before him, Kori is a selfish and self-obsessed narcissist who has lived his life largely by taking advantage of the vulnerable women he meets.

His first wife Grace Wanjiku says Kori left her for Wambui — the woman who gave Kori his first break in business. Wambui, in her final text messages to Kori, expressed feelings of being used and taken for granted.

These are not the only women Kori has toyed with; a cheeky Facebook user recently captured this romantic tragedy when he posted pictures of Kori with four different women who all, interestingly, bear an uncanny resemblance; chubby and light-skinned.

Kori was a playboy, and the chickens have come home to roost. He is simply paying for his mistakes, and rightly so.

He may not have clobbered his wife to death, nor bundled her body into the back of her white Mercedes C200, but don’t get it twisted; Mary Wambui Kamangara is dead because of her husband Kori. Simply put, Kori killed his wife.

In a society where we pressure women to prove their worth by how soon we are able to cuff a man into marriage, Wambui paid the ultimate price — with her life. If the media reports are anything to go by, we can conclude that Kori’s marriage was as toxic and unhappy as many modern marriages which — as my cheeky friend likes to say — are held together by phone passwords.

UNHAPPY MARRIAGE

Texts messages between Wambui and her husband show a woman desperately trying to keep her marriage together, and a man so indifferent that when he arrived home that Saturday night to find Wambui missing, he texted her: “Have fun. Don’t come back”.

It is easy for many to say that if Wambui was so unhappy, she could have just walked out of a marriage and saved her life. But hindsight is always 20/20. I don’t blame Wambui for trying to save her marriage. Wambui’s fears are understood and well-placed; she would rather have died than faced a society that would blame her squarely for a failed marriage. She said this in so many words in her final messages to Kori.

My instincts strong suggest that Joseph Kori might get away with this, because up until today, police are not quite certain of the role he played in his wife’s murder.

With the kind of money he has, any smart lawyer will tell you that there is a fat chance Kori might be remarried this time next year, and declaring “the devil is a liar” as Wangui cools her Gatundu-bred heels in Langata Women’s Prison.

But even before we witness a man who is solely responsible for his wife’s death walk away scot-free or at the bare minimum, with a slap on the wrist, it is important for married men in society to not allow this lesson to slip away.

Your choices have consequences. For all the sacrifices that Wambui made for Kori — including the serious upgrade she afforded him — the least Kori would have done was to protect her and his children from his crazy mistress.

Now his children, have no mother to speak of, and father who is most likely looking for his next victim.