Peninah Wangechi had received threats from her husband over the tumultuous seven-year union. And like a loving wife, she never believed that her husband Samuel Ndirangu would act upon the threats until the night of April 9, 2019.
She describes her marriage as a rocky one. A living hell stretching to nearly a decade. In an interview with the Daily Nation Wangechi says the man with whom they bore three children waited for her to fall asleep before he descended on her, knifing her on the back, chest and head.
Her husband then vanished leaving Wangechi for dead. The two had locked horns in a bitter quarrel, Ndirangu demanding that she quit her clerical job at a local savings and credit co-operative.
Two days before the incident, Wangechi and her husband had tried to iron out the creases in their marriage through the help of a friend. It did not work out.
After surrendering himself to the police Ndirangu was held at Karatina Police Station for assault while his wife was rushed to Karatina Sub-county Hospital by neighbours.
Her stab wounds were between one and two centimetres and though she lost a lot of blood, no major organs were punctured. She was lucky.
On Monday, September 20, Wangechi made a request before Principal Magistrate Alice Mwangi at Karatina Law Courts to have the case against her husband withdrawn.
“I have not been coerced. I have decided to forgive him and let the matter go,” Wangechi said in court.
When asked whether she had been threatened, Wangechi said she had neither been compelled or forced to withdraw the case. She added that the case was withdrawn on her own volition.
Principal magistrate Alice Mwangi granted Wangechi her request.
The two are no longer living together.
