Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Wanjiru's widow recalls last words with athlete

By JAMES MUNYEKI "Let’s meet at the house in the evening," those were the last words the widow of marathon star Samuel Wanjiru heard from him.
Ms Triza Njeri recalled that they had agreed to meet at their Muthaiga residence in Nyahururu town to plan for her dowry payment as well as other family matters including business.
The mother of two said her husband promised to meet her in Nyahururu on Saturday but the athlete could not make it.
Wanjiru's wife Triza during the interview accompanied by Nyahururu deputy mayor Irene Wacuka [PHOTO: JAMES MUNYEKI /STANDARD]
She said that his efforts to get permission from his training session in Eldoret failed forcing him to cancel the trip and opted for Sunday.Njeri said that the two agreed that they hold a family meeting on Sunday night as Wanjiru would travel back to Eldoret the following day.
Dowry payment
"He told me that he would arrive on Sunday evening where we would talk on how to send some of his relatives to my home to notify them that he was planning to pay my dowry. We were then to talk of how to expand our transport business," she told The Standard.
On the fateful day, Njeri booked a matatu from Nairobi to Nyahururu and arrived at 5 pm.
She said her husband had travelled to Eldoret in her Toyota saloon car and was due to return it then.
"That is why he used his coach’s car as his friend, Daniel Gatheru, drove mine so I could be using it in Nairobi," she observed.
The mother of two recalled that they kept on talking for the better part of Sunday morning through his cell phone and he promised to arrive home early for the meeting.
It was at 5pm that Wanjiru called to inform her that he was in Nakuru and would travel to Nyahururu to meet a friend who works at Nyahururu Barclays Bank.
"I knew then that he would be late and instead of staying at home alone, since the children were in Nairobi, I decided to go to a friend’s house within the estate," she said.
It was after 10pm that she got concerned that her husband had not called and his phone was off. She then called one of their drivers to drop her home using a pick-up that was at their parking lot away from their home.
The driver took some time but picked her up at around 11 O’clock and dropped her at the house not knowing that Wanjiru had arrived.
Another woman
"I went straight to the house and took some medicine and later joined him in bed only to be shocked that he had another woman in the house. It was then that a quarrel ensued between me and the woman since she insisted she was my husband’s wife," she recalled, as she fought off tears.
Njeri said that after quarrelling for several minutes, she thought it wise to leave them in the bedroom and call the local police for protection.
"This was the second time that he had come with a woman to my house and that’s why I locked them in the bedroom and ran away. I could hear him call from the bedroom and ask for the keys but I fled for my safety to my friend’s home having called the police on my way," she said.
From there, she only learnt of her husband’s death the following morning as the police only told her that he had fallen off from the balcony and had been admitted to Nyahururu District Hospital.
"It was on Monday morning that they told me he was dead."
Njeri maintained that she had nothing to do with her husband’s death but only feared for her safety and that is why she had called the police.

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