A 36-year-old man who on Monday killed his wife and cut the body into pieces was himself lynched the following day, leaving their four children orphaned.

Peter Ng’ang’a, of Lereshwa village in Kipipiri, Nyandarua County, stuffed the remains of Teresiah Wanjiru in a bag and dumped them in a pit latrine at a deserted nursery school.

Ng’ang’a is said to have been assisted in committing the crime on Monday night by some unidentified people, one of them a bodaboda rider.

Wanjiru, who was also 36, was killed in a maize field. Her husband fled to Karunga in Gilgil, Nakuru county, where a mob lynched him.

The incident was reported on Tuesday by the couple’s 13-year-old daughter, who had been locked in the house together with her nine-year-old brother as the mother was being beaten and dragged to the maize field.

Kipipiri subcounty police commander Ireri Mwaniki said the father lied to the children that their mother had gone to their grandmother's home at Miharati.

Bloodstains led the police and residents to the nursery school and found the body minus the head.

“When we shone the torch inside (the pit latrine) we could see the hands and intestines but not the head. We dug around the pit and used a ladder to retrieve the body," Mwaniki said.

Ng’ang’a had by then escaped to Karunga from where an angry mob fished him out and killed him.

A video recording seen by the Star shows Ng’ang’a telling the mob that a bodaboda operator helped him to carry the body parts to the pit latrine. He does not disclose the rider's identity.

Neighbours said Ng’ang’a was a member of a gang that had been stealing livestock in Nyandarua. Wanjiru is said to have told the police about her husband's waywardness after the cows of their neighbours were stolen and slaughtered in the bush.

A resident said Wanjiru informed the police that her husband had returned home with bloodied clothes and shoes.

The locals suspected that the mother of four was killed because of betraying her thieving husband to Miharati police station. She had also informed the police that the husband had threatened to kill her.

The marriage had been abusive and Wanjiru often fled to her parents’ home at Miharati.

She had returned to her matrimonial home a month ago.

“If the police had taken the threat on her life seriously, she would not have been killed,” a resident said.