Murder suspect Lawrence Warunge now fit to stand trial: report

Lawrence Warunge, a university student who admitted to killing five family members in January, will be arraigned in court on Wednesday.

Also Read: Parents urged to monitor children as Warunge family of four laid to rest

The latest comes after a psychiatric report from the Mathari Mental Hospital revealed that the 22-year-old is mentally fit to stand trial.

He had been declared ‘unfit’ by the same court in late January, with his plea-taking halted following a mental assessment at the same hospital.

At the time, the prosecution told the court that he was on medication for mental illness.

Warunge is accused of murdering his parents, 12-year-old brother, cousin and a farmhand in cold blood. He claimed that they had all conspired to speak ill of him.

In a damning police report, he told detectives that he researched the best way to commit the crime online.

The varsity student admitted to inadvertently getting ‘tips’ from a psychopathic killer in the British show Killing Eve.

According to the police report, he first murdered James Kinyanjui, a handyman who lived just a few meters away from the main house.

He then attacked his mother, Anne Wanjiku, who was in the kitchen, and his 12-year-old brother, who had responded to her distress call.

The university student then attacked his father, Nicholas Warunge, who had fled the visceral attack by jumping from the balcony.

His cousin who was hiding under the bed, was the last to be killed. Warunge told police officers that despite the child kneeling and pleading for mercy, he stabbed the minor with a 9-inch knife.

Warunge the. hit his victims on the head with a metal bar, stabbed them multiple times in the chest, and slit their throats to ensure that none of them survived.