Embu man confesses to killing Catholic priest who sodomised him, called him 'babe'

One of the accused persons in the murder of Catholic priest Michael Kyengo Maingi on Thursday confessed in his mitigation that he killed the clergyman after he turned him into a "wife".

Michael Muthinji, who pleaded guilty of the offense before Embu Resident judge Lucy Njuguna, said that the priest molested him several times before he got fed up and stabbed him to death in October 2019. He had denied the charge when he was first charged in 2019.

Muthinji will be sentenced on November 8, 2021 after the probation report is tabled in court for evaluation.

State counsel Leah Mati recounted details of how the suspect killed the Catholic priest and buried his body in a shallow grave in Embu before fleeing.

Mati told the court Muthinji fled and was arrested in Kilifi where he had been hiding after the murder before he was arraigned to face murder charges alongside his two other co-accused; Kavivya Mwangangi and Solomon Mutava. 

Father Maingi, a 43-year-old priest based at Thatha Parish in Machakos County went missing on October 8, 2019 before his body was discovered in a shallow grave at the banks of River Mashamba in Mbeere Sub-county.

Through his lawyer, the accused confessed that in 2017 the priest, who was initially his mentor and was paying his school fees, had started making sexual advances towards him and kept referring to him as ‘babe’, ‘sweetheart’ among other names before he sodomized him. 

The accused told the court that one day the priest spiked his drink and drugged him, only to wake up and find that he had been sodomised.

When he sought to know why the priest had sexually assaulted him, the priest allegedly said he had all the right since the accused person had nothing to pay for all the favours he had accorded him.

“Kama nime kuumiza pole sana chukua pesa nimeweka juu ya meza ukanunue dawa chemist wacha nikimbie kazi Muthinji,” he told the court of what the priest replied. 

It is at this point the accused says he became angry and despised himself, even turning suicidal as he could not understand why the person who was his mentor had turned into a beast.

He told the court that this went on for sometime and led him to be suicidal as he had lost his dignity but things took a turn for the worst when the deceased told him he had infected him with a sexually transmitted disease.

The accused said the priest’s statement got him furious, leading him to knock him unconscious. He then stabbed him and slit his throat before stashing his body in a gunny bag.

Muthinji said he was remorseful, urging the court to pardon him arguing that he is a young man who can reform and do something meaningful with his life in the society.

Father Maingi's body was found stuffed in a gunny bag with the throat slit.