Court documents tabled at Mombasa High Court indicate that a woman who is accused of killing his Dutch husband Herman Rouwenhorst, at their home in Shanzu, Mombasa, was also married to the late’s brother.
Ruben Mwaniki, a detective investigating the case, told the court that they discovered the accused had marital affair with a brother of the late which resulted in the birth of a child.
In an affidavit sworn by Mwaniki and produced before Justice Ann Ong’injo, Riziki was married to William Rouwenhorst and a marriage certificate is in existence to prove their union.
“The respondent (Cherono) claims to have been married to the deceased (Herman) but we have established through a marriage certificate that she was the wife to William Rouwenhorst, a brother to the deceased. They sired a child with the said brother of the deceased,” Mwaniki told the court.
The detective also produced a birth certificate of the child born as a result of Cherono and William’s union.
The accused sired two children with the late Herman.
At the same time, Mwaniki told the court that Cherono was the mastermind of Herman’s murder incident.
Herman’s security guard Pole Boroko was also killed on the same night.
Cherono’s former employee and close friend, Mary Nekesa Ambani and Timothy Omondi Ngoe have been arrested as accomplices in the murder incident.
“Since the arrest of her accomplices, we have received evidence that the respondent authored the crime by planning, procuring and facilitating the perpetrators for her own benefit,” Mwaniki told the court.
“The accused person gave a key to the perpetrators to access the house on the material date when the murder was executed. The accused was persistent when the murder was not committed on two previous occasions,” Mwaniki added in his affidavit.
She, however, denied killing her husband and accused the investigator of using her as a scapegoat.
Cherono’s children have been lined up as witnessed in the case as their statement incriminated their mother of wrongdoing on the fateful day their father was murdered.