Man who confessed to killing catholic priest in Embu handed 30-year jail term

Muthinjii who was convicted on his own plea of guilty, told the court in his mitigation that he killed the clergyman after he turned him into a "wife".

Muthinji stood pensively on the dock as Embu High Court Justice lady Lucy Njuguna read the sentencing. 

While delivering the verdict, the judge said after considering the impact victim report, the accused, who acted in anger he went ahead to enrich himself with deceased property. 

The judge noted that the accused was able to withdraw cash amounting to Ksh.400,000 and was driving the priest vehicle as if it was his. 

The accused, according to the court,  despite being remorseful acted out of anger as he took law unto his own hands and an  innocent life was lost thus betraying his innocence. 

Despite having alleged to have been sodomized he ought to have used legal channels provided for rather resulting in killing.

The circumstances under which the offence was committed call for severe and deterrent sentences as the family of the deceased are still better as they lost their only bread winner.

The murder suspect who pleaded guilty of the offence before Embu Resident judge Lucy Njuguna, said that the priest molested him several times before he got fed up and stabbed him to death in October 2019. He had denied the charge when he was first charged in 2019.

State counsel Leah Mati recounted details of how the suspect killed the Catholic priest and buried his body in a shallow grave in Embu before fleeing.

Mati told the court Muthinji fled and was arrested in Kilifi where he had been hiding after the murder before he was arraigned to face murder charges alongside his two other co-accused; Kavivya Mwangangi and Solomon Mutava. 

Father Maingi, a 43-year-old priest based at Thatha Parish in Machakos County went missing on October 8, 2019 before his body was discovered in a shallow grave at the banks of River Mashamba in Mbeere Sub-county.

Through his lawyer, the accused confessed that in 2017 the priest, who was initially his mentor and was paying his school fees, had started making sexual advances towards him and kept referring to him as ‘babe’, ‘sweetheart’ among other names before he sodomized him. 

The accused told the court that one day the priest spiked his drink and drugged him, only to wake up and find that he had been sodomised.

When he sought to know why the priest had sexually assaulted him, the priest allegedly said he had all the right since the accused person had nothing to pay for all the favours he had accorded him.

“Kama nime kuumiza pole sana chukua pesa nimeweka juu ya meza ukanunue dawa chemist wacha nikimbie kazi Muthinji,” he told the court of what the priest replied. 

It is at this point the accused says he became angry and despised himself, even turning suicidal as he could not understand why the person who was his mentor had turned into a beast.

He told the court that this went on for sometime and led him to be suicidal as he had lost his dignity but things took a turn for the worst when the deceased told him he had infected him with a sexually transmitted disease.

The accused said the priest’s statement got him furious, leading him to knock him unconscious. He then stabbed him and slit his throat before stashing his body in a gunny bag.

Muthinji said he was remorseful, urging the court to pardon him arguing that he is a young man who can reform and do something meaningful with his life in the society.

Father Maingi's body was found stuffed in a gunny bag with the throat slit.