A tragic tale of love, betrayal and violence played out in the quiet tea estates of Gatundu South, Kiambu County, where a Ugandan woman was stabbed to death by her former lover.
On the evening of June 5, 2014, screams pierced the calm of Gachika village.
Moments later, Lydia Mukimba, a tea picker of Ugandan nationality, lay bleeding at the doorstep of a neighbouring house, her intestines spilling from a knife wound in her abdomen.
Clutching her stomach and barely conscious, she named her attacker, her former husband, Rodgers Kutosi, also known as Paul Kutosi Lodgers.
The events of that evening would culminate in a murder conviction, an appeal and a court decision that would reduce a death sentence to 25 years in prison.
A toxic relationship
According to Beatrice Nalifo, the mother of the deceased, Mukimba had been in a volatile relationship with Kutosi.
They lived together for months in 2013, but the relationship was marred by persistent domestic violence.
“She would, from time to time, leave the relationship due to the violence... but she would eventually go back upon reconciling with him,” Nalifo testified in court.
Things took a more dangerous turn in March 2014.
Mukimba, trying to escape another attack, was assaulted and slashed on the thigh by Kutosi.
That marked the final break.
She left him for good and sought refuge with her sister, Olivia Mukindia.
A new beginning, short-lived
While living with her sister, Mukimba met John Makoli, a neighbour.
The two quickly grew close and began living together as husband and wife.
But this newfound happiness would soon come under threat.
On June 5, 2014, while Makoli was at work, he was approached by a woman from their tea estate who delivered devastating news: his wife had been stabbed.
When he found her, she was weak, not talking, and her stomach was covered with a lesso.
Her last words
Napolo, a neighbour who found Mukimba after the attack, described the harrowing scene.
“I was in my house when I heard a lady crying from a neighbouring house. I rushed out and found her lying at the doorstep, holding her stomach,” he told the court.
“She told me that she had been stabbed by her former husband.”
Mukimba’s wound was gruesome. Her intestines protruded from the gash in her abdomen.
Despite being rushed to a nearby clinic and then referred to Gatundu District Hospital, she died before receiving treatment.
The moments before the murder
Moses Busiku, a cousin of Kutosi, recalled how he had been approached earlier that day.
“He came to my house and asked me to escort him to find his wife,” Busiku said.
“He came back at 4:30 pm with a letter from the area chief. He said his mother-in-law had instructed him that he could only go to her house if he had the letter.”
Busiku agreed to accompany him. They arrived in Gachika around 6 pm.
According to Busiku, Kutosi pointed out the house they were going to and then asked him to wait while he went alone to speak with the deceased.
“I waited for about 20 minutes, but he didn’t return,” Busiku testified. “As I approached the house, I saw him running away in the opposite direction.”
A manhunt and an arrest
The following day, police received a report about the killing.
Sergeant Joseph Chepkok, the investigating officer, confirmed that a report of the murder had been made at the CID offices in Gatundu.
By then, Kutosi had fled to Nairobi and was staying with a relative who was a pastor. It was this same relative who took him to the police station.
When arrested, Kutosi still had the letter from the area chief in his pocket.
Postmortem results revealed that Mukimba died from massive blood loss caused by a ruptured spleen.
The trial
Kutosi was charged with murder under Section 203 as read with Section 204 of the Penal Code.
During the trial, he admitted to having lived with the deceased but denied the killing.
He claimed that when he visited her house, she was not there and that he later learned the chief was looking for him.
The High Court found him guilty and sentenced him to death.
In 2023, he appealed the sentence, not the conviction, arguing that he was remorseful, a first-time offender and only 24 years old at the time of the crime.
He also claimed the stabbing was not premeditated.
His lawyer pleaded for a reduced sentence of 12 years, citing the Supreme Court’s ruling in Muruatetu, which allows courts to consider mitigating factors in murder cases.
The Appeal Court’s decision
While acknowledging the heinous nature of the crime, the Court of Appeal considered various mitigating factors, including Kutosi’s young age, remorse and the fact that it was a single stab wound.
Appellate Justices Paul Kiage, Weldon Korir and Joel Ngugi also noted that although the attack was brutal, there was no evidence of premeditation.
The court rejected the State's argument that the presidential commutation of the death sentence to life imprisonment stripped the court of jurisdiction to re-sentence.
“A presidential commutation of sentence does not constrain this Court’s jurisdiction to review the actual sentence imposed on a convict,” the judges ruled.
Consequently, the Court of Appeal substituted the death sentence with a 25-year prison term, effective from April 16, 2014 — the date Kutosi was taken into custody.
“In the result, this appeal partly succeeds to the extent that we set aside the sentence to death, and substitute therefor with a term of 25 years imprisonment. By dint of section 333(2) of the Page 12 of 12 Criminal Procedure Code, the sentence will run from 16th April, 2014, since the appellant has been in custody since then,” they ruled.
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