Residents of Muthaara area in Tigania East constituency, Meru County are still reeling in shock and disbelief after a middle aged man murdered his two children before committing suicide by hanging himself in the house.
The man is believed to have laced the drink of the two minors with poison before hitting them with a blunt object on the head.
Thubuku location chief Batholomew Mwika said it’s suspected the father laced the yoghurt he had bought in a nearby market and gave it to the oblivious children.
During the fateful day, Rayvan Baraka, eight, and his sister Nova Jay, three, were alone having childish fun at their home in Muthara, Meru County, on Friday last week when a grim tragedy struck.
Their mother, a trader at Muthara market, was busy selling her wares when their father, David Mwenda, arrived to check in on the children.
Mwenda, a 32-year-old boda boda rider in Muthara, had since separated from his wife over protracted marital wrangles and relocated from the market to his father’s home in Charuru village.
As a doting father, Mwenda had brought with him some yummy yoghurt for his little ones.
But shortly after, Mwenda’s lifeless body was found dangling on the roof of their house, while his two children lay below, unconscious with visible injuries on their heads.
Rayvan and Jay later succumbed to the injuries and poisoning while in intensive care at Meru Level Five Hospital.
Thubuku location Chief Bartholomew Mwika said Mwenda is believed to have fed his children with yoghurt laced with poison and hit them on the head before committing suicide.
“Mwenda had separated from his wife but had visited the children on Friday. He found the children alone in the house, and it is not clear why he took the tragic action. Investigations are ongoing,” Mr Mwika said.
On the fateful day, Mwenda had left his father’s home in Charuru to honour a medical appointment over a broken limb.
He suffered a broken leg in October last year, grounding him and making him unable to feed the family.
According to Paul Mwongela, a brother of the deceased, the accident may have compounded their marital challenges, forcing Mwenda to leave his family.
He says Mwenda left his family at Muthara market, about a week earlier, and returned to his parents’ home at Charuru, due to differences with his spouse.
“In October last year, Mwenda was involved in an accident and broke his leg. Their differences intensified because he could not provide for the family, yet they were living on his father-in-law’s plot. This was not the first time Mwenda was separating from his wife and going back home,” Mr Mwongela recounted.
He says that at one time, he had vowed to move on, but he later resolved his issues with his wife, and they moved back together.
“Whenever there was a dispute, he would leave because the house belonged to his father-in-law, who allowed them to live there without paying rent. He was undergoing a lot of mental distress because sometimes he would cry bitterly,” he says.
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The family, which is yet to come to terms with the tragic loss, is now struggling to raise Sh400,000 to cover burial expenses and medical costs incurred after the children were admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Stakeholders have raised concerns over an upsurge of domestic and intimate partner violence in Meru County.
Two weeks ago, a 52-year-old man committed suicide after killing his wife in Imenti Central.
By John Majau
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