Esther Wanjeri Kamau was sentenced to death with her...

Esther Wanjeri Kamau was sentenced to death with her daughter, Lucy Wanjiku Kamau, by a Court of Appeal in Nakuru, Kenya, for murdering her husband. The appellate judges upheld a death sentence handed to the two but set free Peter Liningishu whom they had allegedly hired as a hit man. The woman and her daughter were sentenced to death by the then Nakuru Resident Judge David Rimita, who has since been suspended from the Judiciary on graft claims. Justice Rimita found the trio guilty of brutally murdering Joseph Kamau Njacha on March 19, 1998 at Eburu Farm in Nakuru. The appellate judges quashed Liningishu's conviction and set him free, saying the trial judge based his conviction on confessions by Wanjeri and Wanjiku. In their ruling, read by Justice O'Kubasu, the judges observed that it was wrong to convict a person relying on confessions of his co-accused without collaboration from an independent witness.