On November 30th 2022 Arnold Oluoch was arraigned at a Bungoma court in a case in which he is charged with threatening to kill his own mother over property,
In the case that is before Bungoma Senior Resident Magistrate Angelina Odawo the accused person is also facing the charges of refusing arrest and other charges of threatening some police officers.
Despite the court case that our reporter attended and continued with his investigations a Nairobi-based detective who is probing the matter, a woman suspected to be behind the whole mess is the accused person’s wife Mrs Janet Opanga.
” We are currently going on with our investigations and we have managed to get some key information about the entire Saga. Mrs Janet and her father are on our radar and once we are done, we shall arrest them and arraign them in any court across the country for them to face the charges accordingly,” he told our reporter who covered the court session on Wednesday on phone.
Our reporters’ efforts to get a comment from both families involved were not successful but managed to get details from the court proceedings as part of the probe.
From the detectives, some phone evidence links the woman’s father to the centre of the Saga.
” Janet’s father Mr.Samson Opanga is also on our list, he has been linked to some serious criminal offences alongside the daughter and the son-in-law who is the accused person. They have been eyeing to grab the widow’s properties. We have enough evidence which shows that they stole the widow’s title deeds and once we arrest them we shall unravel the whole syndicate.Our work is to do the investigations and later bring them to justice,” he added.
The widow has been stressed over the years by the son demanding that she hands over her properties to him being the only son and he would only submit her title deeds if transfers were done as per his demands. All these problems started years back when Oluoch married the woman when he was only 2O years old awaiting to join Maseno university. At the point of the meeting, the woman had already dropped out of high school if the documents in our possession is something to go by .
Back to the main point, among key properties that the three are eyeing include: A well-developed commercial property with seven 3 bedroom bungalows within Bungoma town which is her main source of income and also where the elderly widow currently resides .
The detectives say that the woman is suspected to have obtained the title deeds from the widow’s house years ago through the accused person who is facing the charges of threatening to kill her.
” The man stole the titles from his mother, and gave it to the woman, (Mrs Janet) who later handed it to her father Samson Opanga who resides just metres away from the widow.
Among the charges that the detectives want the three transferred to Nairobi to face are : The woman’s father will be charged with conspiracy to defraud, aiding theft of the title deeds, while Janet and the husband will face the charges of stealing the title deeds, stealing the widow’s Fridge, gas cookers, gas cylinders, sewing machine,2 beds, mattresses and clothes among others.
Samson Opanga will also have additional charges of colluding with the daughter to collect rent from the widow’s bungalows for years and developing his own projects as the sickly widow anguished in poverty.
The report of the lost title deeds was made at Bungoma police station with an OB number in our possession.
The detectives had earlier obtained a court order that assisted them to obtain key data from the mentioned groups phones.The results are horrible especially from Mrs.Janet Opanga.
The data links her to some strange phone numbers that are under investigations over key threats that the widow has been facing to surrender her only remaining land title deed to unknown persons.
” We have some phone numbers that we have managed to get to know the owners, some of them will be recording their statements in coming days, Mrs.Janet is at the centre of everything, ” he added.
“Her phone has also some suspicious information on some sensitive matters relating to security issues we are trying to establish,” he added.
We have also learnt that FIDA is interested in joining the said Saga as a way of protecting the sickly widow and her other family members from such unfortunate cases.
Deadily harassment threats to the woman.
The court heard that the accused person would go to his mother’s bedroom late at night demanding she talks to unknown people calling with strange numbers. Detectives believe these were linked to Mrs.Janet where the widow’s life was being threatened and ordered she surrenders the title she has,writes a will favouring the son and withdraws the succession case from court which had been raised by family members in court.
” They called late in the night for several days introducing themselves as senior people from Vigilance House Nairobi taking care of Oluochi’s interest and that nothing could be done to them,” she told the court.
More details further revealed that they also lied to the OCS Bungoma police station that they were from the said Vigilance House ordering the immediate release of Mr Arnold who was in custody then. From our investigations, the said group of people who seem to have an interest in the property too also contacted the Khalaba chief Mr Moses Wanakawa to order Oluoch’s mother to surrender the remaining title deed to him(chief) and order family members to withdraw succession case.
Immediately from court “.Report from Bungoma police indicate that while Oluoch was in custody he admitted to police that he had never met these people and that Janet Opanga was well known to them and frequently communicated and met them.Also she gave out Oluochi’s family members numbers to these people to harass and threaten them.Some of these people are suspected to be current and former policemen who were dismissed from service.
Current investigations prove that threats were genuine.
Oluochi’s Sister in Nairobi was also threatened on the same according to a report filed at the Langata police station last year under the OB number 69/09/2021, the detective revealed.Oluoch has not yet responded to our text messages on the same.
The source revealed to us that they threatened her to ensure the current succession case in court has been withdrawn failure to which she would regret.
The accused person ironically has colluded with the woman and his father-in-law to psychologically stress his own mother, the investigations reveal.
This is despite the mother taking good care of his bills for many years even as he worked and most recently disposed a part of her property to enable him build his house since he was homeless and paid off his many debts after his countless nagging and threats.
The woman’s close friend revealed to us that Janet who has always been jobless moves from club to the next, from one man to the next,town to town as she enjoys life while the man who lost his job last year as a banker continues to be poor and stressing the mother to hand over property to him which she still entirely depends on.
