A chilling scream from a valley near Kikopey Trading Centre in Nakuru County on the evening of May 20, 2015, marked the tragic end of Naomi Wangui Eleman’s life — murdered by her husband, Stephen Eleman.
The brutal killing, witnessed by schoolchildren and followed by a haunting confession, has left scars in both a family and the justice system.
Now upheld by the Court of Appeal in Nakuru, the conviction and death sentence imposed by the High Court in Naivasha has reaffirmed the gravity of the crime.
A violent marriage turned deadly
Naomi’s story is one of many in Kenya’s shadowed epidemic of domestic violence.
Testimony from her own nine-year-old son painted a grim picture of a household gripped by fear.
“My parents often quarreled, and my father would beat my mother,” the child said in unsworn testimony.
He added, “My father often threatened to kill her and then kill himself.”
This history of abuse ultimately drove Naomi to seek refuge with her mother at Kikopey, along with her children.
Naomi’s mother testified that her daughter moved in with her in March 2015 after Eleman beat and evicted her.
But peace was short-lived. On the morning of May 20, 2015, Eleman arrived at the house and left with Naomi.
That was the last time she was seen alive.
What happened that evening came to light through the haunting testimonies of young schoolboys who stumbled upon the unfolding tragedy.
“As we were coming from school, we heard a woman screaming from a valley nearby,” a 17-year-old student recalled.
“We went closer and saw a man holding a woman about 15 metres away. When one of us tried to help, the man pulled out a knife. We all ran,” he said.
The following day, on the same path to school, the boys saw a crowd gathered.
Lying there was the same woman they had seen - now lifeless.
The boys recognised her belongings.
A confession in the night
That same night, just before midnight, Eleman walked barefoot into Gilgil Police Station.
He appeared disoriented, wearing only a jacket without a shirt, according to an officer.
“He told us he had fought with his wife, Mama W, and feared she had been hurt, but couldn’t say where it happened,” PC Joseph Thuo testified.
The next morning, officers were alerted by Garrison Secondary School students about a body in the valley.
Police, accompanied by students, recovered Naomi’s body lying against a tree trunk.
Her throat had been slit. The scene bore grim evidence: a knife, caps, wallets, a marvin, safari boots, a kiondo of rice and potatoes and a yellow leso tied around her mouth.
Chief Inspector Simon Kirui confirmed that Eleman later led police to the crime scene and to Naomi’s mother’s house, showing knowledge of the incident's details.
The postmortem and the trial
A postmortem conducted on May 26, 2015, confirmed multiple stab wounds and a slashed throat.
Eleman was arraigned on June 2, 2015, but could not plead due to a psychiatric report from Gilgil Subcounty Hospital declaring him mentally unfit.
He was treated at Mathari Mental Hospital and declared fit for trial by December 2015.
In court, Eleman did not deny killing Naomi. His only defence was insanity.
He claimed he could not remember what provoked him, saying, “I loved my wife, but I don’t know how I killed her.”
However, the trial judge rejected this defence, noting that the report from Mathari only confirmed his fitness to stand trial — it said nothing about his mental state at the time of the murder.
The judge observed that Eleman had pursued Naomi repeatedly, had threatened suicide and was capable of deliberate planning.
“His conduct was consistent with that of a sane, estranged spouse,” the judgment stated.
The court leaned heavily on the vivid testimonies of the boys who saw the attack and narrowly escaped harm themselves.
“I believe they were credible witnesses,” the trial judge remarked.
“They had no reason to lie, and their involvement was purely coincidental.”
Both witnesses saw Eleman scuffling with Naomi, and when they tried to intervene, he threatened them with a knife.
Eleman’s own confession, a charge and caution statement recorded on May 26, 2015, further undermined his claim of insanity.
He detailed how he had traveled to Gilgil to escort Naomi home, and how they argued before he attacked her.
“I left her while I had critically injured her and reported myself to the police,” he said.
This presence of mind, the court ruled, “negates the suggestion that he did not know what he was doing or that it was wrong.”
Death penalty upheld
During sentencing, the trial judge considered the Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in the Muruatetu case, which made the death penalty discretionary rather than mandatory.
Still, the judge found the circumstances too severe to impose any other sentence.
The Court of Appeal upheld the sentence, stating, “The brutality of the murder, the premeditation and the attempt to silence witnesses showed clear malice aforethought.”
The appellate judges Mohamed Warsame, John Mativo and Mwaniki Gachoka dismissed the appeal on all grounds.
