How a visiting male ‘lover’ led to the brutal killing of this woman

By John Makuba.

Police in Bungoma are looking for a 46-year-old man, who fatally hacked his wife, 42, on suspicion that she was cheating on him.

The suspect, identified only as Geoffrey, killed Hellen Namalwa alias Khadija.

This is after Hellen's suspected lover visited the couple’s home at Nangeni A. Village in Mayanja, Bumula Constituency, and found Geoffrey in the house.

The alleged side lover, who arrived on a motorbike at 5pm on Sunday, immediately made a U-turn and sped off.

An angry Geoffrey, thereafter, reached for a jembe and hacked Hellen in the head. As if that brutality hadn’t shocked him, Geoffrey went for a kitchen knife and stabbed Hellen in the neck and thigh. The suspect, thereafter, tied the woman, who was bleeding profusely, onto a bed using a shawl (leso). Hellen bled to death.

The couple got married in February this year after the death of Hellen’s husband.

Geoffrey is an ex-convict, who was released from prison in 2018, local authorities say.

Neighbours said the suspect killed Hellen as her four children looked on helplessly.

Geoffrey Wekesa Maungu, the clan chairman, said they had expressed their reservations at having the suspect reintegrated into their community in February, 2019, but Hellen threatened to kill herself should she be separated from her love interest.

Mr Maungu said at the time of joining the Nangeni A. Village community, he (Geoffrey) was not in possession of a national identity card.

Increased pressure to have Geoffrey excommunicated from the community resulted in the lovers temporarily relocating to Kimaeti Shopping Centre.

“We, later, allowed Hellen and Geoffrey to live together as husband and wife [in our village] because Geoffrey began assisting her with garden work, and was the person herding the widow’s livestock,” said Mr Maungu.

The clan chairperson told K24 Digital that after killing Hellen, Geoffrey met the deceased’s relatives on his way to a hiding place.

“Hellen’s kinspeople asked him why he was wearing blood-stained clothes, but Geoffrey ignored them, instead saying he was rushing to the market,” said Mr Maungu.

Rose Naliaka, Geoffrey’s sister, said the suspect had – in the past – warned that he would kill Hellen if “she does not stop secretly seeing her many boyfriends”.

Hellen was a mother of four (three sons and one daughter) from her previous marriage. She hadn’t gotten a child with the suspect.

Area village elder, Vincent Walukhake, urged police to ensure that the suspect, who is believed to have fled to the neighbouring Uganda, is swiftly arrested and charged in court with murder.

Hellen’s body was moved to Bungoma County Referral Hospital morgue.