The High Court has sentenced former military officer Peter Mugure to life imprisonment after finding him guilty of the October 2019 murders of his estranged wife, Joyce Syombua, and their two young children.

Delivering the sentence on Tuesday, trial judge Martin Muya described the killings as “barbaric”, stating that the brutal circumstances of the crime warranted the maximum custodial sentence.

The judge ruled that despite the time Mugure had already spent in remand custody during his trial, the sheer gravity of the offense far outweighed any mitigating factors presented in his favor.

The court noted that the acts committed were too heinous for leniency, sealing a life sentence that brings an end to the lengthy criminal proceedings against him.

Although Mugure expressed disagreement with the guilty verdict, Judge Muya informed him of his constitutional right to appeal the court’s decision.

Where it all began

In October 2019, Joyce Syombua 31, and her two children, Shanice Maua 10, and Prince Michael 5, traveled from Nairobi to Nanyuki.

They were visiting Major Mugure, who was then a senior officer based at the Laikipia Airbase.

Mugure was Syombua’s estranged husband and the father of the two children.

The visit was supposed to be a weekend reunion to mend family ties and allow Mugure to spend time with his children.

A few days after arriving in Nanyuki, Joyce and the children went completely silent.

Her phone was switched off, prompting frantic relatives to report them missing.

Intense search

After three weeks of intense investigation, detectives made a gruesome discovery: the bodies of Joyce and her two children were found piled on top of each other and buried in a shallow grave.

The grave was located in a public cemetery (Thingithu area/Makaburini) in Nanyuki.

Autopsy reports later revealed that Joyce died from head trauma, while her two young children had been strangled to death.

Peter Mugure was arrested as the prime suspect alongside Collins Pamba, a casual worker at the Laikipia Airbase.

The breakthrough in the case came when Pamba confessed to his role and turned into a state witness, sealing Mugure’s fate, where he testified in court that Mugure killed his family inside his military quarters at the Laikipia Airbase.

He then allegedly called Pamba to help him clean the room, load the bodies into a vehicle, transport them under the cover of darkness, and bury them in the shallow grave.

During the trial, it emerged that Mugure and Syombua had been embroiled in a toxic, long-running domestic and legal dispute.

Syombua had previously taken Mugure to court, demanding child maintenance for their two children.

The court had ordered the military officer to pay child support, a ruling that reportedly angered Mugure and served as the primary motive for the premeditated executions.