DCI wades into legal battle over ex-Nakuru mayor's Sh1b estate

The fight over the control of former Nakuru Mayor Joseck Thuo’s Sh1 billion estate has taken a new twist after the Directorate of Criminal Investigations waded into the matter.

Detectives investigating a case of forgery in an application filed at the High Court in Nakuru are seeking to be supplied with copies of a contested Will, which form part of the evidence presented in a succession case between beneficiaries of the estate.

Police Constable Geofrey Kinambuga is investigating the case reported at Central Police Station in December 2022 by Nixon Thuo.

The investigating officer stated that following the report by Nixon, they opened an inquiry file in January 2023 to investigate the circumstances surrounding the alleged forgery.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officer seeks to be supplied with three original Wills, and a draft copy of the original.

Kinambuga in the application, claims Nixon in a statement that the Will that was purportedly prepared by his late father dated September 3, 2016, is and was forged by some of his brothers and other people with the intent of allotting themselves huge shares of the property.

The officer noted that Nixon claims his father was poisoned immediately after the forgery of the Will to pave the way for the deal.

“I have made several requests to be supplied with the original Wills for the same to be forwarded to the document examiners at the DCI headquarters so that I get to know whether or not the alleged Wills were forged. But it has been a tall order as both the letters I did to the parties has borne no fruits,” stated the officer in his application.

He added that it appears some of the beneficiaries of the estate are against the Wills being subjected to forensic analysis.

The court heard that the succession case is pending a ruling before Judge Heston Nyaga who has since been transferred. The original file was, however, not in court at the time it was mentioned on Tuesday.

Judge Nangea said the court will find out when the ruling will be delivered and directed that the application by the DCI be mentioned on February 4, for a report on the status of the succession file.

In April 2024, Judge Nyaga declined an application by Nixon, his mother Susan Wanjiru, and his sister Maureen Mukami to have the copies of Wills subjected to forensic analysis.

Nixon claimed that the signatures in the documents did not match and one of the copies contained an endorsement while the other did not. He accused his step-brother James Ngeta of forging their father’s signatures twice.

Nixon stated that he knew his father’s signature and that only the last page had the genuine one. He alleged that days after his father’s death, his driver gave him a copy of the Will, which was later scanned by his brother Erick and shared through their emails.

At the time, Nixon claimed that the Will was one copy, but later his brother Geoffrey came up with two copies.

To clear the doubt, he said, they took the alleged original copy to his lawyer who observed that it had irregularities, forcing him to take his copy to DCI.

Earlier, only a single copy of the Will was subjected to forensic investigation.

In October 2023, forensic document examiner Emmanuel Kenga informed the court that part of the pages were not matching.

Kenga concluded that it was not the original copy of the Will as there was evidence of manipulation and insertion.

The former chief document examiner at DCI indicated that the prints on the cover page of the Will were produced by a different machine compared to page six.

He told the court that from page one to five, the signatures were not the same, while that on page six was similar to the one availed to him.

The other siblings- James, Geoffrey, and Erick insist the Will is genuine and the court should rely on its content.

Justice Nyaga ruled that the expert report did not raise valid points to warrant any further investigations.

The former mayor, Joseck Thuo, died on December 27, 2021, leaving behind two widows and five children.

Harrison Ngeta and Nahashon Kabiri, on August 2022 initiated a petition to the High Court in Nakuru seeking probate of Thuo’s will. They claimed that the presented Will was the original document.

They asserted that they were the executors named in the Will and that the late mayor was their uncle.