A former house-help of Jacque Maribe on Thursday testified how she was woken up by loud cries of Joseph Irungu as he called for help from a neighbour.
Ms Pamela Ingato Kembo told the court that Mr Irungu alias Jowie was calling Mr Brian Kassaine, a neighbor, to help him. She said she rushed to the master bedroom upstairs and saw blood and a gun.
CALL FOR HELP
Mr Irungu, she added, kept calling for “Brian as he ran downstairs”.
She told the trial court that she picked some blood-soaked clothes and threw them to the bedroom.
Asked by state counsel Ms Gikui Wangui whether she heard any gunshots, Ms Kembo said she did not hear such or any other noises before the incident.
Ms Kembo said she started working for Ms Maribe in 2016. Then, they lived near Carnivore before moving to Royal Park in Lang’ata. She said Mr Irungu started visiting the former Citizen TV journalist in 2017.
She said the murder suspect would visit once before disappearing for weeks. She said she was told that Mr Irungu worked as an army officer in Dubai.
He came again in December 2017 and later in January 2018 and stayed for three days.
“He visited again around April and stayed for one week and came back in June and started living with us,” she said.
The witness said Mr Irungu came with two suitcases in June.
She said he later noticed a gun in the house and when she asked her boss, she was told Mr Irungu was a security officer.
And when he started living with them, she said Mr Irungu used to drive Ms Maribe to her workplace and come back to the house and sleep. He would go and pick her up in the evening.
MONICA’S MURDER
Ms Kembo was testifying in the trial of Mr Irungu and Ms Maribe, who have denied killing Monica Kimani, whose lifeless body was found in the bathtub of her apartment in Lamuria Garden, Kilimani, with her throat slit from ear to ear.
The offence they allegedly committed on September 19, 2018.
She said on September 19, Mr Irungu dropped his fiancée at her workplace and returned to the house where he stayed until about 4pm. He left dressed in short-trousers, a white T-shirt and a cap.
The couple, she added, did not come back that night until the wee hours of September 20. They had their keys and would not bother waking her up.
Irungu again dropped Maribe at her workplace the following day and came back to sleep, before leaving the house in the evening.
There was nothing unusual on the said night until she was woken up by Jowie’s wailing at around 1am. She said Mr Kassaine and Ms Maribe took Mr Irungu to hospital and came back with his arm bandaged.
About three days later, Mr Irungu was picked up by police officers, she said.
After completion of the testimony, Mr Irungu made a fresh application to be freed on bond, saying the protected witness had already testified and his siblings would accommodate him, if freed on bond.
Justice James Wakiaga will rule the application in February and the hearing resumes in March 17, 2020.
The prosecution will be calling 10 more witnesses and 13 have testified so far.
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