A Nairobi High Court, criminal division, has heard that despite John Matara, the accused person in the murder of socialite Starlet Wahu, denying killing her, he had confessed to having stabbed her in her right thigh.
Matara, on February 2, 2024, pleaded not guilty to murdering Wahu on January 3, 2024, while they were in a short-stay house at Papino apartment in South B.
Appearing before Judge Alexander Muteti on Tuesday, February 10, 2026, Corporal Horace Arwa told the court that when he found Matara receiving treatment, he asked him directly why he had killed the deceased.
“My lord, I directly asked him why he had killed the lady he was with at the apartment, and upon interrogation, I asked him if at all he knew the lady. He identified the lady as one called Starlet, whom he claimed was his girlfriend,” Officer Arwa told the court.
Corporal Arwa, the arresting officer attached to South B Police Station, revealed to the court that upon further interrogation, Matara told him that they had issues which led him to stab the deceased on her right thigh.
“My lord, upon further interrogation, the accused person said that all he can remember was that they had a scuffle with the lady, and he managed to stab the lady on the right thigh,” Corporal Arwa told the court.
Interrogation in hospital
However, Officer Arwa informed the court that he could not go on with the interrogation since the nurses were attending to the accused. They waited patiently as the nurses attended to him.
Notably, he told the court that they noted the accused had stab wounds that were being attended to by the nurses at the time he was interrogating him.
Arwa said that they also informed the nurses that the patient they were attending to was a murder suspect.
“The suspect had multiple wounds that I could not say were multiple stab wounds as he was being attended to,” Officer Arwa added.
The hearing proceeds today, Wednesday, February 11, 2026.
