It should have been a fresh start for Winnie Akusuha, who had separated from her high school sweetheart, Hannice Juma, and moved back in with her parents in Kabwareng, Nandi County.
Juma had agreed to travel to Nandi County and surrender birth certificates for their three children, so that they could be registered for school.
To the Keyas, the future looked bright.
But for Juma, the birth certificates were the Trojan horse that would get him into the city of Troy that was the Keyas’ home, to execute a woman he claimed to have loved.
A woman who gave up her education for him, and sacrificed her parents’ love for his.
And, to ensure that justice would never be served on him, the coup de grâce in the heinous plot was to take his own life.
Juma and Akusuha personified what many perceive to be a perfect life – high school sweethearts who got married with children.
On social media, Juma often displayed the couple’s small wins and losses in the rat race that is life in Nairobi.
They seemed to have a lot in common – they were raised in humble settings, with both of their families settling in Kabwareng, Nandi County after buying land. Their parents’ homes are barely four kilometres apart.
And, most importantly, they shared a vision of rising above their humble backgrounds to make something decent of themselves in life.
Akusuha’s father, Musa Keya, said the relationship always irritated him.
“The lady was studying; she was in the same school with the man. I decided [the girl would drop out of school],” Keya said.
Keya thought the act of tough love in 2010 would change his daughter’s mind, and that Akusuha would dump Juma then return to school.
A relentless Akusuha opted to move to Nairobi in 2014, where a middle-aged woman employed her as a domestic worker.
The woman, impressed by Akusuha, also cultivated a relationship with her parents. She contemplated enrolling Akusuha in a college.
One day in 2015, Keya received a call from the woman, who said Akusuha had eloped with Juma.
Juma, it turned out, had already been living and working in Nairobi. The two lovebirds rekindled their love, which spawned when they were still students at Kabwareng Secondary School.
Juma was orphaned at a tender age, and was raised by his grandmother. An uncle paid his school fees through to high school, which he completed in 2011.
After high school, he chose to work in the private security sector. He worked as a security guard in meat factories and hotels while moonlighting as a nightclub bouncer.
On his Facebook page, Juma also claimed to be a fitness trainer and musician.
In 2023, cracks emerged in the marriage. Schneider Kavulani, Akusuha’s younger sister, lived with the couple and she witnessed the trouble in paradise first-hand.
“My sister started complaining that the husband did not have time for the family. She used to say that he arrived at 5am and headed straight to the gymnasium then later came back at 8am,” Kavulani said.
Juma, who often told Akusuha and Kavulani that he was a staunch Christian, would at times not return home for days, Kavulani added.
“He used to tell us that he was a member of a certain church in Kibra but never disclosed which one it was,” Kavulani said.
Akusuha’s parents had on many occasions pressured Juma to take the couple’s three children to church for dedication to Jesus Christ.
But Juma was not willing to show anyone where he claimed to be a worshipper, let alone introduce the children to Christianity through his church.
Akusuha’s mother, Mary Ondisa, was also in the loop when the marital problems, including the dispute over introducing the children to church, started.
“Akusuha then called her father and informed him that her husband had refused to go with them to church,” Ondisa said.
Once, on phone, Keya got no answers from Juma on why the children had not been dedicated to the church.
But after the call was disconnected, Juma told Akusuha and Kavulani that his pastor was engaged in cult-like activities, hence the hesitation.
That was the start of a huge rift in the marriage.
Ondisa said she had many, long and detailed talks with Akusuha all through the string of marital disputes, until January 10, 2025 when her daughter eventually decided to return to Kabwareng, with the three children in tow.
Aside from the church dispute, Akusuha told Ondisa that her husband had been regularly using supplements during his bodybuilding quest, which allegedly affected his health.
Akusuha asked her mother to stay with the children as she sought employment to cater for their basic needs.
“My daughter had really gone through a lot in her marriage,” Ondisa said.
When Akusuha arrived home and narrated her ordeal, Keya welcomed her and the three children home.
Keya then contacted Juma and demanded birth certificates for the three children. The documents were to be used in registering the three children in the National Education Management Information System (Nemis) so that they could start school.
The Keya family resolved that Akusuha would never return to Juma, and that the three children would join Musasa Primary School in Vihiga County.
Kabwareng is on the border of Nandi and Vihiga Counties, and the school is a few kilometres from the Keya family home.
Juma agreed to deliver the birth certificates in person.
Sometime in January, 2025, Juma grabbed a foolscap and a pen, sat down and jotted down a detailed murder-suicide plot.
In a neat handwriting, Juma wrote down the tools he needed to execute the plan – the birth certificates, a hoodie, goggles, a mask, a small torch, a “special” knife, five packets of rat & rat poison mixed in a bottle, and something he described as sash.
Juma then wrote his plan of attack. He intended to travel to his maternal home in Serem, Vihiga County on January 13, 2025. Then, on the same day, from Serem to Sirwa in Baringo County, where he was alleged to have been given some land.
And, finally, from Sirwa to Kabwareng.
The notes, which the Nation has seen, show that Juma was to leave his phone in his family’s Kabwareng home at exactly 7pm, and approach “the target” with only the torch and his “special knife” in hand.
He planned to conduct reconnaissance on the Keya home and find a good hiding place in the area.
After getting a clear sighting of Akusuha in the home, Juma planned to, in his own words, “attack and finish” his wife.
Juma intended to drink the rat & rat poison immediately after and slit his own throat.
“We were informed that he had been seen around. Even the kids said that he was armed with a knife,” Keya said.
Juma executed his plan on January 15.
He stabbed Akusuha several times in the head, face and chest.
Ondisa said that she was coming from the bathroom when she heard screams from the house.
“I heard my daughter wailing as she said that she had died. I rushed there only to find that Juma had stabbed my daughter a long time ago. That is how I started screaming and calling for help,” she said.
By this time, Juma had ingested the poison and slit his throat. He was picked up a few metres from the Keya home.
The family rushed Akusuha and Juma to Jumuia Hospital, about nine kilometres away from the Keya home. Both were pronounced dead on arrival.
The crime scene, whose photographs the Nation has seen, was bloody. The Jumuia Hospital emergency centre was also bloody.
“We have never had any meetings. I don’t even have the time to have such a meeting. What their son did, do you think is right?” Keya said when asked if there has been any attempt from Juma’s family to seek reconciliation.
Back in the family compound, very few people know where Akusuha was buried. In line with Maragoli customs, the manner in which she met her death dictated that Akusuha be buried late at night, in the farm behind the house.
Equally, no funeral takes place, plus no one is given an opportunity to mourn, at least not publicly.
But the Keyas mourn to date. They are, after all, only human.
