A man in Nakuru has died following an acid attack by his wife on Thursday, December 5.
The man, 52, was attacked in the wee hours by his second wife during a domestic row that turned tragic.
Neighbours who heard the 6:00 am argument responded to a distress call by the victim.
“I found him on the couch crying saying he was dying. Though he had a dark complexion, he had turned pink. His two children told me that acid had been poured on him,” one of the neighbours narrated.
A crime scene tape in a past scene.
Photo
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The victim was then rushed to the Nakuru Level Five Hospital but unfortunately, their quick efforts did not help much as he succumbed shortly after to both internal and external injuries.
Area chief Vincent Siro confirmed the incident stating that the wife had initially reported that the incident had been committed by someone else, a claim that was quickly debunked by preliminary investigations.
“A highly corrosive substance had been poured on the mattress. We recovered a container that had the acid used. We also arrested the woman’s son who had removed the bedding and hid them in a different house which was an interference with evidence,” Siro stated.
His firstborn daughter told the press at the hospital that her father had narrated the whole ordeal to her recalling how the stepmother got up at 5:00 am and started perusing her husband’s documents while shouting at him.
“He told us that she left the bedroom and returned with a jerrican which he thought had water. It wasn’t until it was poured on his face that he realized it was a corrosive substance,” she said.
She also added that this was not the first attempt on his life and that he had been previously abusive even blocking her and her siblings from accessing their father.
“Our father had even come up with a coded message telling us he wasn’t comfortable on phone conversations as our stepmother had warned him against communicating with us,” she added.
The victim’s brother also recalled the wife leaving the hospital immediately after he arrived, leaving the victim writhing in pain on the hospital bed without his wife at his side.
This trip back home, the brother narrated, was the suspect’s last-ditch effort to siphon money from her husband.
She reportedly took her husband’s phone and some of his documents, thereafter trying to withdraw money from his phone unsuccessfully.
“She made three attempts to withdraw money from Matoke’s phone using the wrong PIN and the account was blocked. We also established that two title deeds were missing,” he claimed.
He had then called the Kaptembwo Police Station immediately, informing them of his brother’s attack and naming the wife as the perpetrator.
The wife was arrested later in the day after she presented herself to the police station to record a statement.
A photo of a woman in handcuffs
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