As High Court judge Joel Ngugi sentenced former Icaciri Girls Secondary School Principal Jane Muthoni and her co-accused to 30 years imprisonment each for the murder of her husband, Solomon Mwangi in 2016, one question remained unanswered; the whereabouts of Nelson Njiru Magati, one of the main accomplices in the heinous crime.

Justice Ngugi’s ruling noted that Njiru is the man who helped Muthoni assemble the killers of the former Kiru Boys High School principal in a most brutal manner.

At the time, Njiru was a Principal of a Technical Vocational institution in Voi, Taita Taveta county.

Successful prosecution

While detectives investigating the murder managed to arrest and successfully prosecute Muthoni and her two co-accused, Isaac Ng’ang’a alias Gikuyu and Joseph Njuguna alias Karis who was turned into a state witness, Njiru’s whereabouts remain unknown todate.

According to the judgement, Njiru, a close friend of Muthoni, helped her obtain data from Safaricom which helped in tracking the slain principal’s movement and suspected love affair with an Mpesa attendant in Murang’a.

To accomplish this mission, Njiru roped in a Ms Damaris, whom he introduced to Muthoni at a hotel on Thika superhighway. For their efforts, Damaris and Njiru were paid Sh100,000, leaving a balance of Sh100,000.

“When I collected the data which was in a sealed envelope and drove to the school where I handed it to Mwalimu, she gave me Sh100,000, part of it in cash and part of it through Mpesa,” Damaris told the court, adding that they shared the amount with Njiru equally.

Muthoni was dissatisfied with the data and a few days later, she called Damaris asking if she could get someone who would install software on her phone to help her track her husband’s communication.

“I could not offer what she wanted and therefore I started ignoring her calls. I did not even bother about the balance.

Even when Njiru told me that we needed to come up with a way to get the balance, I told him that I was not interested,” she would later tell the court.

It is also Njiru, through Damaris, who roped Njuguna into the murder plot.

Initially, the plan was to murder the MPesa agent who Muthoni suspected was her slain husband’s lover.

They were however forced to change plans and go for Mwangi’s head when it proved difficult to murder the Mpesa agent since her shop was next to a police station.

The court heard how Mwalimu (Muthoni) held a meeting with Njiru and the killers after the initial plan to murder the MPesa agent aborted, during which she announced that she “would work on another plan.”