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An investigating officer in the murder case against journalist Jacque Maribe and businessman Joseph Irungu, alias Jowie, yesterday told the court that the two were charged after police obtained evidence linking them to the murder of Monica Kimani.

Chief Inspector Maxwell Otieno, who led investigators from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, told High Court judge Grace Nzioki Jowie, at one point, looked disturbed when he emerged from Monica’s house on the night she was murdered.

The detective, while winding up his testimony, said Jowie’s friend, Jennings Orlando, a GSU officer, told them he saw him when he came back from Monica’s house that night.

Otieno said they took over the investigations from DCIO Kilimani on September 25, 2018. He noted that when he interrogated Orlando, he confessed he was with Jowie and three other friends at Road House Grill that day. 

Looked disturbed

Further, he told the court that Orlando informed them he left with Jowie using Maribe’s car and dropped him at a place on Lenana Road, Nairobi, where it’s believed he took a cab to Lamuria Gardens.

“Orlando, who was driving Jowie, informed us that while in the car he (Jowie) reached for a gun that was near the dashboard. He changed into a kanzu in that vehicle,” said Otieno.

Chief inspector Otieno further told the court that Orlando said he waited for Jowie at a petrol station and, when he finally came back, he looked disturbed. When he asked him what the problem was, Jowie is alleged to have told him that he had a disagreement with a woman friend he had gone to see, who police believe was Monica.

Orlando said they left and used Mbagathi Road. They fuelled Maribe’s car at a petrol station along that road and Jowie later dropped him.

Otieno said that on September 19, 2018, Monica came back from South Sudan and was dropped off by a cab from the airport at around 7pm. A few hours later, at around 8.30pm Jowie is alleged to have been dropped at Lamuria Gardens by a cab.