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| photo courtesy: standard |
When Michael and Esther Kanuri received a text message on February 23 — from their PCEA deacon George Githuo who was a confidant of their daughter, Bernadette Njoki — they were shell-shocked.
Dr Lukoye Atwoli, a psychiatrist at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital says, though there is a multitude of factors to this kind of act, “each case is unique. A psychiatrist has to find out the chain of events from many parties involved and not just one person to arrive at a proper conclusion. But a lot must have definitely transpired between the victim and the killer through their lives.”
Njoki was so angry she could kill anyone or anything that crossed her path, the text read, besides making her parents’ life ‘hell on earth’ because they were ‘ungrateful.’ “Once I got the message I was stunned because while I know she has a very bad temper, I never expected her to follow through on her threats,” Githuo said.
He tried to call but the 28-year-old mother of one didn’t return his calls. He called her parents to warn them of her threats and forwarded the message. Njoki allegedly made good her threat and killed her foster mother, Esther Kanuri by stabbing her several times on the neck and chest with a knife.
The Kanuris adopted Njoki, three months old, when they were living and working in Shanzu Teachers Training College. Career educationists, they had a young son whom they loved dearly, but felt they wanted to add a daughter. They spared no expense to ensure she had good education. But she became a bad girl.
“We transferred her from about five secondary schools because of disciplinary cases, and we eventually had to allow her to privately sit for the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) exam in which she performed dismally,” Mr Kanuri recalled. However, the Kanuri's never gave up on her, even after several businesses they set for her went belly up.
“She is a very smart woman, shrewd and cunning, but she is naughty. She could have accomplished so much if she was disciplined,” Kanuri explained.
Neighbours said they warned the Kanuris to kick Njoki out, as she was taking advantage of them, extorting large sums of money. But the Kanuris claimed Njoki had no alternative family. Still, Kanuri says he loves her unconditionally. “She is still my daughter, despite having committed this beastly act. I am a parent, and I have raised her from when she was a baby, and I love her,” a bereaved Kanuri said. But what would prompt an adopted child to kill foster parents?
Dr Lukoye Atwoli, a psychiatrist at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital says, though there is a multitude of factors to this kind of act, “each case is unique. A psychiatrist has to find out the chain of events from many parties involved and not just one person to arrive at a proper conclusion. But a lot must have definitely transpired between the victim and the killer through their lives.”
And it’s not just children who kill parents. Last December, Philip Maiyo Rotich admitted before Iten acting Senior Resident Magistrate Rose Ndombi, to killing his son after his ‘incessant complaints’ about his mother’s death and other threats.
Barely two weeks later, father shot and killed his 31-year-old son with a poisoned arrow in Marakwet East District following dispute over sufurias. Atwoli says people are born with a genetic inscription not to kill and “something major, therefore, must have happened to have overridden that injunction.”
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