This archive report was first published on 23 July 2021.
On July 23, 2021, a tragic incident shook the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya, when Ivy Wangechi, a student, was brutally killed by her boyfriend Naftali Kinuthia with an axe.
During the second hearing of the case before Justice Stephen Githinji, two security guards and Wangechi's classmate took the stand to recount the horror of that day.
One of the guards described how he heard loud screams and saw Kinuthia hacking Wangechi with an axe, causing the axe to land with a thud amidst screams from students.
He further testified that Kinuthia then used a knife to scare away the crowd as he ran away from the scene, with people shouting, 'he has killed her.'
Another security guard testified that he witnessed the incident from about 100 meters away and made a radio call to the hospital's patrol desk, ensuring an ambulance rushed to the scene to ferry Wangechi to the hospital's emergency section.
Wangechi's classmate, who was in the laboratory at the time, rushed out to find her classmate lying in a pool of blood and later died while undergoing treatment.
Naftali Kinuthia, through his lawyer Vincent Githaiga, has filed a third application for his release on bond, stating that his client was not a flight risk and would attend all court sessions when required.
The hearing was adjourned to December 15, with the ruling on the bond application review to be delivered on September 23.
