Twists and turns in Jowie murder case

Joseph Irungu, alias Jowie, yesterday  admitted to having a romantic affair with businesswoman Monica Kimani, whom he is accused of killing on the night of September 19, 2018.

In submissions filed before court, Jowie — through his lawyer Hassan Nandwa — explains why he was dressed in a kanzu when he went to visit Monica at Lamuria Gardens.

“It was very logical for the accused to go dressed in a kanzu while visiting his girlfriend, Monica, at Lamuria Gardens, a few metres from where his fiancée (Jacque Maribe) was working, to disguise himself from being suspected of infidelity,” reads the submissions.

Jowie is charged alongside Maribe, who was his fiancée, with the murder of Monica.

While asking the court to dismiss the case against him, Jowie says he had no apparent reason or motive to kill Monica, a friend whom he had a good and healthy relationship with.

According to Jowie, Monica was killed by an unknown person whose DNA was found on the strappings used to tie her mouth. He says the Government Chemist, in his testimony, stated that he conducted DNA analysis on the items collected from the house of the deceased, which included samples from glasses, fridge, clothes, left-over food and gloves found in the bathroom — and the conclusion was that Jowie’s DNA was not present on any of those items.

“In his report, he made six conclusions, among them that an empty Tusker beer can contain DNA of an unknown male and the strapping used to cover the deceased’s mouth contained her DNA and that of an unknown male; who is not accused. It is worth noting that the strappings were found in the bathroom where the deceased body was found in the bath-tab, and the same was used to cover the deceased’s mouth,” claims his lawyer.

Jowie argues that Monica was cohabiting with a Sudanese man who is presumed to have had access to her house and no evidence was tendered in court to show he was not in Kenya on the material day.

“The investigating officer never inquired from the Immigration Department to capture his entry and exit details. Even the letter written to Safaricom seeking to obtain call data of the number which was believed to be his number, it never sought to know if he had other numbers registered in his name. Therefore, it is possible that he was in Kenya on September 19, 2018,” he claims.

According to Jowie, the Sudanese might have had a motive after seeing a message written by Monica to one Antony Kaaka, asking him to come and “help her sleep.”

“If the said message could have been seen by the said Yasir, it could have prompted a fight leading to her death,” he argues. Jowie further claims that the person that two prosecution witnesses interacted with at Monica’s apartment could not have been him since he arrived at her house at 11:21pm and left at 11:31pm.

“This person, from the testimony of PW7, was taking wine and opening the fridge and moving around the house from the kitchen to the sitting room. Therefore, this person came visiting Monica Nyawira at around 9pm and was still in the house by 10:40pm; this cannot be the accused because his arrival was registered at the gate at 23:21 hours which is 11:21 pm, and left at 23:31 hours (11:31pm),” his lawyer argues.

Jowie further notes that PW7 told the court that, that person’s name was Joe, he was working with State House as security person, and that he is from Emali, which descriptions have not been proved to be his.

On the issue of Monica’s blood on his brown short, Jowie argued that when the pair of shorts were recovered from Maribe’s house and an inventory made, no blood dot was observed and no remark was made about that.

“It was dropped by someone on the brown short because it is bigger on the front side than on the rear side. The hole made on both sides of the short by PW9 indicating the place and the size of the drop is big enough to be seen by the naked eye. Had the drop been there at the time of its recovery from the house, a remark could have been made in the inventory,” he argued.

He further argued that the theory that he came at 9.00pm wearing a white kanzu, a brown pair of shorts and grey coat and after the murder with his clothes stained by the deceased’s blood and thereafter, called his neighbor Brian Kasaine at 2am asking for paraffin to burn the clothes and went ahead to burn the cloches that night, is not supported by the evidence adduced in the case.

He claimed that two prosecution witnesses saw him  when he was returning at 2331 hours in the same clothes, white kanzu and they never observed any blood stain.

“Moreover, the allegation that the accused called Brian at 2am of 20th September 2018 is not true since the call could not be identified from the call data, furthermore, no body fire burning on that night and the burnt items cannot be said to be Kanzu and include Jacket which did not feature in these proceedings,” he argued.