Police officer recounts events prior to athlete Wanjiru's death

Samuel Wanjiru's mother Hannah Wanjiru on May 22, 2012 shows her lawyer Gordon Ogolla the spot her son is said to have jumped from. Mr Wanjiru died in 2011. PHOTO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Njeri said they started dating while they were in school and started living together in 2005.
  • Mr Wanjiru died in mysterious circumstances on the night of May 15, 2011, at his house in Nyahururu.

A police officer Monday told a Nairobi court that the widow of former marathon champion Samuel Wanjiru called them the night he died, in distress.

Mr Paskwale Ireri, who is attached to Nyahururu police station, said he and his colleagues were on night patrol in the town when they were called by their boss who informed them of the distress call from Teresia Njeri Kamau.

And because they knew Mr Wanjiru and his home well, they drove there immediately and found him groaning in pain on the ground.

'SUICIDE'

Outside the compound, he said, were about five or six men whom he suspected were Mr Wanjiru’s training partners.

Mr Ireri said on inquiring from the watchman what had happened, he said Mr Wanjiru had jumped from the balcony.

He said his boss, identified as Mr Raphael Rotich, took Mr Wanjiru to hospital together with the men who were standing outside the compound.

The officer said he was left in the compound, trying to convince a woman identified as Jane Nduta not to jump from the same balcony.

FRIEND

He said the woman wanted to jump from the balcony because the door to the bedroom had been locked from outside and there was no spare key.

The officers, he added, had to break the padlock to open the door.

They later took Ms Nduta to the police station.

He said the woman was Mr Wanjiru’s friend and worked in a hotel in town.

ARGUMENT
According to the witness, Mr Wanjiru is said to have arrived home together with Ms Nduta and gone into the house after the watchman told them the athlete’s wife was not around, only for Ms Njeri to walk in five minutes later.

“There was a bitter argument shortly before she (Njeri) stormed out of the house,” he said.

On Tuesday, Ms Njeri took to the stand and told the court how she met Mr Wanjiru.

DATING

She said they started dating while they were in school and started living together in 2005.

She said Mr Wanjiru asked her to stay with his mother while he was competing in Japan.

Ms Njeri said Mr Wanjiru later rented a house in Nyahururu town.

The court heard that they lived with her mother-in-law, Hannah Wanjiru, and her brother-in-law.

PHONE CALL

Six months later, she told the court, the marathoner bought a house in Muthaiga, Nyahururu.

He also bought another house in Ngong, where she was living, while Mr Wanjiru was in a training camp in Eldoret.

The 29-year-old woman said Mr Wanjiru called her two days before he died, asking her to travel to their Nyahururu home.

In Nyahururu, she was to collect her daughter’s baptismal card, school fees and her car.

Mr Wanjiru died in mysterious circumstances on the night of May 15, 2011, at his house in Nyahururu.