It was a sensational day at the inquest into the death of Nyeri Governor Wahome Gakuru.
His widow Catherine Wahome denied on Thursday that she was behind her husband’s death on November 7, 2017, in a horrific road crash.
Chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor testified that the governor could have been saved had measures been taken swiftly to stop massive bleeding.
Dhamana Africa lawyer Martha Waweru hypothesized that Catherine could have engineered his death after he filed a divorce petition, one of the grounds being infidelity.
“We note that in the divorce petition there were an accusation of Dr Gakuru to you of engaging in an extramarital affair and my question to you is, would this have involved the person for your best man for your wedding, one Mark somebody?” the lawyer asked.
However, Catherine who was the fourteenth witness during the inquest, said she was shocked and had not had any issue of infidelity.
Waweru had suggested that adultery could be a valid motive for her to try eliminate the governor.
The lawyer said she could have used Josphart Mwangi Maina, Gakuru’s private bodyguard, and the driver, Samuel Kinyanjui Wanyaga, who were close to the governor.
However, she denied knowing Maina since 1996, as he [Maina] had earlier claimed, and said she came to know him in August.
She also said she knew Kinyanjui, the governor’s driver, for only three to four weeks when he was her driver.
Catherine said when she was with the governor he had a different driver, adding that she was surprised that Kinyanjui was the one driving the vehicle.
“Prior to when I called (Josphart Mwangi) Maina after the accident, I have no recollection to when I spoke to him again,” she said.
She said she would have no interest to kill anyone, let alone Gakuru, adding that her faith could not allow her to do that.
Senior assistant DPP Peter Mailanyi had started by painting a picture of the governor’s troubled marriage since 2008, saying the governor had even filed a divorce petition.
In the petition filed in the chief magistrate’s court in Milimani in 2013, Gakuru had also cited cruelty, being denied access to their Runda residence and being disrespected in several social places in front of his friends as grounds for divorce.
On one occasion, he had taken his children to Nairobi members club where she stormed in, grabbed the children and left, hurling nasty words at him in public.
“On another occasion, he says you chased him using your car from Sagret Hotel along Milimani Road, Nairobi, to the Kencom bus park at the city centre, driving dangerously and threatening to hit his car,” Mailanyi said.
She also allegedly incited his children against him to ensure they held their father in low esteem, subjecting him to torture, the Mailany said
When the governor died, the petition was still pending in court.
His widow denied remembering the contents of the petition, saying she had read it a long time ago.
In her response, Catherine had called on the court to dismiss the petition and be given custody of the children.
She denied that they were not on good terms from 2008 and November 2017.
Catherine admitted, however, that they had some differences but said they were just secondary reasons why she moved from their Opal Court rented house to another house in 2008.
The two were married in 1996 and had three children.
She denied the prosecutor’s claims that she participated in Gakuru’s campaigns because his rivals were attacking him, saying he was not married and so she had been requested to come in and save him from embarrassment.
Chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor, the twelfth witness, said Gakuru died of excessive bleeding and injuries to the lower back.
Oduor said that the governor would have been saved had measures been taken earlier to stop bleeding.
“The cause of death was bleeding and when you are bleeding at the scene, what you require is someone to stop the bleeding so that you don’t continue bleeding,” he said.
“And also bleeding has consequences because it reaches a time where you start having organs shutdown so I say it was possible that he could have survived.”
There was a delay of over 40 minutes, which Oduor said was long enough for someone who was bleeding, especially with the severity of the injuries.
He said he did not see any evidence of attempts to stop bleeding or evidene of any surgery.
The body was pale, a sign of significant loss of blood, he said. He enumerated the injuries.
Dr Loise Mathini, the intern who attended to the governor, also said the governor’s tongue, hands and eyes were pale, meaning he had lost a lot of blood and was also in shock.
The thirteenth witness said the governor’s breathing was normal but shallow and he could speak slowly, saying he was in pain and wanted to be turned.
She said they had tried to stop the bleeding where the injury was severe and weretrying to resuscitate him when he passed on.
“When we noticed the extensive pelvic injury we put on a pelvic binder. By tying a binder around the pelvis it offers compression and reduce the amount of bleeding,” she said.
