•The man killed his wife and dumped the body in a man hole full of water where it decomposed badly for weeks.
•The appellate court ordered on July 21, 2023 that his file be sent back to the High Court so that he can be re-sentenced.
Image: FILE
At 22 years, Gladys Munyenye met Hassan Ondara who married her as a second wife. However, the union turned tragic months later.
Hers was not just a marriage that had no honeymoon, it was also very brief and one that cut her life short.
Munyenye got married in 2011 and for the five months she lived with her husband, disagreements and violent encounters were uncountable, prompting her parents to visit their house frequently to calm things.
The family lived in Kuria West and was within a kilometre’s distance from her parent’s home.
One day in early October 2011, Munyenye’s child suddenly appeared at her parent’s home unaccompanied but later said he had been dropped there by his father Ondara.
Munyenye would then go missing for almost two weeks. When asked where his wife was, Ondara kept feigning ignorance, telling her parents that he did not know where she was.
At some point, he told his in-laws that he would take them to where their daughter was in three days. That did not happen.
It took a foul stench from a neighbouring deep manhole for people to find Munyenye.
The manhole had water and when efforts were made to retrieve the body, it was so badly decomposed that it was falling apart. The skin had peeled off and most of the flesh fallen off.
A rope was tied to the leg and when pulled up, the leg disconnected from the body at the hip. The rope had to be tied at the waist for the body to be removed from the hole.
The man was then arrested based on the suspicion that he aroused due to his inconsistent and contradicting account he gave regarding his wife’s whereabouts.
Pathologists were unable to determine how Munyenye met her death through autopsy.
But analysis of her bones matched her to her parents, and this helped to conclusively identify her.
The man was later charged with murder in court and got convicted on February 23, 2016. He earned a death sentence.
He appealed at the Court of Appeal, complaining that he was nailed using circumstantial evidence that did not cut the threshold.
"They [complained] the prosecution evidence as not meeting the standards required of circumstantial evidence in the absence of any eye witness, when the appellant was not placed at the scene and when the cause of death was not established," court papers say.
He succeeded on his appeal against the death sentence as judges agreed that it was bad in law in light of the Supreme Court's 2017 Muruatetu judgment.
The appellate court on July 21, 2023 upheld his conviction but ordered that his file be sent back to the High Court so that he can be re-sentenced.
"The appeal on sentence is allowed to the extent that the death sentence is set aside. The file shall be remitted to the High Court in Migori forthwith for the fixing of a re-sentencing hearing date leading to an appropriate sentence."
On re-sentencing, the High Court is expected to take into account the seven years he has been in jail. It is not clear when the man filed his memorandum of appeal.
It may also consider the pre-conviction remand period amounting to five years starting 2011.