Detectives investigating the suspected premeditated killing of Kenyan businesswoman by her Briton husband have narrowed down to property row as primary motive of the murder most foul.
Simon Harold Shiels was arrested last Sunday for the suspected murder of his wife Jacinta Njoki in a 2018 road accident on the Thalathameli-Kaoyeni road in Ganda, Kilifi county and he is expected to appear at the Malindi High Court today.
This is after it emerged that he may have intentionally caused the demise of his Kenyan wife when he knocked down a motorbike that was carrying her leading to her death.
Kilifi County Criminal Investigations Officer Noah Katumo said the arrest came after the Director of Public Prosecution asked the Traffic department to withdraw the case it had filed against the accused to have the police pursue it criminally.
“So we launched our investigations, and the evidence points to murder,” he said.
Kilifi DPP Alex Jamii yesterday expressed confidence that his office had gathered enough evidence to prosecute Shiels for Njoki’s murder.
According to court documents, the property battle between Shiels, Njoki’s ex-husband Amos Okoth Oluoch and his children ensued shortly after her death.
Njoki’s two children, Anthony Otieno and Mary Akinyi and her relatives, fought the foreigner over the property they claimed belonged to the deceased.
In 2018, Oluoch sued Shiels over the ownership of the property worth millions of shillings arguing that although he and Njoki were separated, their marriage was not formally dissolved, and he was still her legal husband, having conducted their marriage under the Luo customary law.
“We separated but never divorced, so I am her dependant,” he said in court.
However, he did not support the Luo customary marriage with evidence but the court presumed that there was a marriage between them, having cohabited for more than 10 years and had two children.
Shiels denied that Olouch had ever been Njoki’s legal husband since no proof of marriage had been produced.
According to Shiels, he only got to know of the woman’s son upon her death, while he had known her daughter during her lifetime as her cousin.
“They have no history of our relationship. The deceased had already divorced by the time we met in the UK,” he said in court.
Evidence tabled in the case indicated that after Oluoch and Njoki separated, she got married to Shiels, and lived with him for some years before her death in 2018.
The court documents further show that the Briton paid bride price to Njoki’s parents under Kikuyu customary law.
Malindi High Court Judge Reuben Nyakundi, who handled the dispute, ruled in favour of Shiels, noting that he had proved his marriage to Njoki.
on January 22, 2018, Shiels was driving a Mitsubishi pick-up when the crash in which Njoki died occurred.
Before the incident, he had gone to the couple’s farm in Kaoyeni village and was later joined by Njoki, who arrived on a motorbike. The two disagreed about an unknown matter. Njoki then left on the same motorbike.
Shiels allegedly pursued them with his vehicle and this prompted the rider to branch off onto a footpath. He kept following them and ran over them. Njoki was pronounced dead on arrival at Tawfiq Hospital in Malindi.
A post-mortem revealed that she died of acute blood loss and head injuries.