Paulette Wanjiru, a Nairobi-born interior designer and mother, has opened up about her 13-year marriage to a man whose secret obsession with witchcraft, cemetery rituals and dark wealth-seeking consumed their family life and nearly destroyed her.
When did Wanjiru have her first child?
Speaking in a TUKO Talks interview, Wanjiru said the relationship began in 2012 when she was working at a furniture company in Eldoret.
Her future husband was a new arrival in the city, and she helped him find his footing, referring clients to his curtain shop and becoming his trusted contact.
By the end of 2013, they were living together and had their first child.
Wanjiru abused by ex-husband
Within two months of giving birth via caesarean section, Wanjiru noticed her ex-husband returning home in the early morning hours.
When she questioned him, he slapped her. Though he apologised and she forgave him, the pattern of disappearances, infidelity and violence became a constant feature of their marriage.
She kept it all hidden, having been taught by her grandmother that what happens at home should stay there.
Business dispute ends up in court
The couple’s problems deepened when a business dispute over Ksh 800,000 ended up in court.
To fight the case, her ex-husband began visiting witch doctors across Kenya and eventually travelled to Tanzania, sending home requests for tens of thousands of shillings at a time while she ran two shops, one in Eldoret and another she had opened in Lodwar.
He eventually returned from Tanzania with a witchdoctor in tow, a lean, athletic-looking man who moved into their home for roughly two months.
Wanjiru abused by witchdoctor
During that period, the man performed nightly rituals, caning her ex-husband, lighting fires from eggs and making trips to a nearby cemetery.
He placed bottles of urine at the shop entrance, buried figurines around the compound and erected knives along the perimeter fence as a so-called defence mechanism.
Wanjiru said she was instructed to wrap herself in a red and black cloth and participate in a ritual involving live chicks. When she resisted, she was slapped in front of the witchdoctor.
Wanjiru’s ex-husband asked to sacrifice son
She quietly prayed throughout, never fully submitting to what was demanded of her.
It was only after she pretended to be an ally that her ex-husband disclosed the full extent of his activities, including a claim that during his time in Tanzania he had been told that acquiring great wealth would require sacrificing their firstborn son.
The witchdoctor also reportedly claimed to have caused the death of a client’s child during a money-recovery ritual, a moment Wanjiru described as the point she knew she had to leave.
Wanjiru’s ex-husband sells car
Her ex-husband sold her car during the COVID-19 pandemic without giving her a single shilling, spent the proceeds on alcohol and continued to beat her.
The second time, he pushed her from a moving vehicle in Molo; bystanders pulled him out of the car, and she collapsed after defending him to the crowd.
She finally left in 2023, after 13 years.
