A remote Tutuma village in Mitunguu, Meru County is riling in shock after a son from hell and an ex-convict massacred his mother through hacking to death yesterday morning.
Irate area residents baying for his blood broke into the house where he was hiding and immediately lynched him.
Daniel Mutuma, a rape ex-convict is said to have accosted his mother as she went to buy sugar in order to prepare their breakfast when he descended on her with panga and slashed her to death.
The 70 years old Alice Muthoni succumbed immediately.
The assailant then turned on witness identified as Patrick Muthaura who managed to escape death by a whisker raising a distress call.
Area residents responded swiftly.
Mutuma, now deceased escaped and locked inside their house but residents broke into and beat him to death.
Police from Mitunguu took the two bodies to Meru Level Five Hospital mortuary and seized the suspected killer weapon.
“She wanted to prepare tea so that we could have breakfast when she was attacked from behind. I heard her crying in anguish and I realised she had been slashed in the neck. When he spotted me, he wanted to attack me but I ran and raised the alarm.” Openly shocked Muthaura recounted.
The man tried to commit suicide by setting his house on fire using a gas cylinder but dozens of irate residents who had gathered at the home broke into the house and put it out.
They then seized the man, dragged him outside the house where they beat him to a pulp, leaving him for the dead a few metres from his mother’s body.
Area manager Priscila Nkirote said the mother and son had a strained relationship and that the woman had on numerous occasions reported cases of threats to her life.
She said Muthoni had welcomed her son with open arms after he served over 20 years in jail after being convicted of rape and assisted him to start life afresh.
However, Mutuma continued to torment his mother, forcing her to hire Muthaura as a watchman so as to help ward off possible attacks.
Muthaura said the mother kept pleading with her son to change his ways but things only got worse.
“The mother loved her son but he kept threatening to kill her and then commit suicide. She always lived in fear. I think that is why she hired me as a watchman,” he recounted.
Henry Muriungi Sebastian, a local leader, said the incident had caused sorrow and fear among residents and urged parents to seek help from mediators when they have issues with their children.
He urged authorities to take matters seriously, saying if police had acted on time they would have saved the two lives.