![]() When the Consul sped away, Kirichu got out of the car and found himself alone. Then he resigned to his fate and fell to the floor. The man seated at the back with the chief, Kirichu, unsuccessfully tried to open his door. As the shots rang out, the one seated shotgun, Kiburi Thumbi, reached across and opened the driver’s door. Other than his chauffer, there were two other men in the car with the chief that afternoon. In the car, as he stared at the other car, the chief joked “this is why I don’t let you drive my car alone.” The other car turned left, the rougher patch, and sped away. Then the road forked and Gichiri turned right. But the dusty, potholed road was too narrow for two cars to fit. The other driver seemed impatient, hooting repeatedly and trying to force him to give way. Less than a minute before this daylight assassination, Waruhiu’s driver noticed another car closely following him. His eyes were closed and his mouth open, bleeding onto his dapper white shirt and pants. His body now lay with his head thrust back on his headrest and his right foot on the front seat. At 12:48pm, the most senior Kenyan administrator in Kiambu District had just been shot. Whoever was driving it then hit the accelerator, turned sharply right towards Nairobi, and disappeared. Without looking at the other three people in the car, he turned back and walked into his car. Then once, for good measure, into the front left tyre of his Hudson. Then he shot the man in the back left seat. Then he leaned slightly and asked the man seated there “Chief Waruhiu?” Before the older man could finish his answer, the questioner deftly pulled a pistol from his jacket pocket. He walked straight to the rear left passenger window of the Hudson. Startled, the driver hooted and screeched to a halt. At the wheel of the black Hudson, Gichiri Mbatia barely had time to brake, stopping just short of driving into the car in front. The brown Ford Consul had appeared from nowhere, then reversed back into the narrow path.įrom the front passenger side of the Consul, a tall skinny man in a brown jacket and a scarf got out. The most important murder of the early 1950s and the two men who hanged for it.
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