A Kerugoya magistrate has ruled that Rachel Wandeto's mother, Sarah Njeri, has the legal right to bury the slain gospel singer after the court rejected Peter Njaramba's unproven customary marriage claims.
A Kerugoya Resident Magistrate's Court has finally brought to an end one of the most emotionally charged and legally contested burial disputes in recent Kenyan memory, ruling that the family of slain gospel singer Rachel Wandeto has the exclusive right to take her remains and proceed with burial arrangements.
In a ruling delivered on Thursday, Resident Magistrate Harrison Kariuki granted an application filed by Wandeto's mother, Sarah Njeri Wandeto, directing Montezuma Monalisa Funeral Home to release the body to the family. The court further issued a temporary injunction barring Peter Njaramba — a man who had loudly and persistently claimed to be Wandeto's husband — from accessing, collecting, removing, or in any way interfering with her remains, pending the full determination of the main suit.
The ruling drew emotional reactions from family members and supporters who had spent weeks agonising over the prolonged impasse, hoping and praying that Rachel would finally be accorded the dignified send-off she deserved.
Rachel Wandeto was a Kenyan gospel singer whose music had touched many lives and earned her a dedicated following within the faith-based entertainment community. Her death, which occurred on May 18, was not only tragic but deeply disturbing in the manner in which it came about. According to investigators, she was attacked in Nairobi's Mwiki area while heading home. Unknown assailants doused her with a flammable substance before setting her ablaze in what authorities described as a calculated and vicious assault. She sustained catastrophic burn injuries covering approximately 85 per cent of her body and was rushed to Kenyatta National Hospital, where doctors fought desperately to save her life. Despite their best efforts, she succumbed to complications arising from those injuries, her death sending shockwaves across Kenya and triggering widespread public outrage and calls for justice. A postmortem examination later confirmed the cause of death, laying bare the full, horrifying extent of the violence inflicted upon her. Detectives subsequently took over investigations, and the case has remained a matter of intense public and investigative scrutiny.
At the heart of the burial dispute was Peter Njaramba's insistence that he had been Rachel Wandeto's husband, having allegedly undergone a Kikuyu customary marriage ceremony with her back in 2013. It was on the basis of this claimed marital relationship that Njaramba had moved to court to assert his right to take custody of her body and oversee burial arrangements.
The court, however, was having none of it.
Magistrate Kariuki subjected Njaramba's claims to rigorous scrutiny and found them to be fundamentally lacking in evidentiary support. In his ruling, the magistrate was blunt and categorical: "The court is therefore unable to conclude from the material presented before it that the respondent has established a valid Kikuyu customary marriage on a balance of probability."
The court enumerated precisely what was missing from Njaramba's case. There were no records of dowry negotiations. There was no proof of actual dowry payment. No photographs from any alleged customary ceremony were produced. No independent documentary evidence of any kind had been placed before the court to corroborate the existence of the supposed marriage. Under Kikuyu customary law — as with many other Kenyan customary law frameworks — the existence of a valid traditional marriage is typically demonstrated through a clear and verifiable process of family engagement, negotiation, dowry payment, and ceremony. The complete absence of any such evidence in this case was, in the court's view, fatal to Njaramba's claim.
Kariuki also addressed a separate but significant argument raised by Njaramba: the question of his fatherhood. It was not disputed that Njaramba had fathered two children with Wandeto. However, the magistrate firmly rejected the notion that this fact alone could serve as proof of a valid customary marriage. Paternity and matrimony, the court made clear, are two entirely distinct legal concepts, and the existence of one does not imply or establish the other.
In addition to challenging the merits of the application, Njaramba's legal team had also raised a preliminary objection targeting the court's jurisdiction, arguing that a similar matter was already pending before a court in Kenol. The court rejected this plea outright. Magistrate Kariuki found that Njaramba had failed to produce sufficient material to demonstrate the actual existence of the alleged parallel proceedings. Simply claiming that a related matter was before another court, without producing credible supporting evidence, was not enough to invoke the sub judice rule. The Kerugoya court accordingly confirmed its jurisdiction and proceeded to determine the application on its merits.
With Njaramba's claims dismantled on every front, the court turned its focus to the competing claim brought by Sarah Njeri Wandeto, Rachel's biological mother. The court found that Sarah Njeri's standing as the biological mother of the deceased, in the absence of a proven valid marriage, gave her a superior and legally recognised right to make decisions regarding her daughter's burial.
The ruling was met with visible relief and emotion among family members who had endured weeks of legal wrangling, public attention, and heartbreaking uncertainty. Rachel's uncle, Joseph Kimaru, was among the first to speak following the judgment, his words carrying both relief and a quiet vindication. "We celebrate the ruling because it will now allow us to bury Rachel. There were no customary steps taken to marry her and that is why the family has the right to take her body for burial," he said.
He further revealed that the family had originally scheduled the burial for May 28, but that those plans were dramatically derailed when Njaramba obtained last-minute court orders halting the process. The sudden legal intervention had left mourners who had already gathered at Kerugoya Stadium stranded and confused, as the dispute over the burial site and control over funeral funds escalated into a full public spectacle.
The family's lawyer, Kiguru Kahiga, praised the court's handling of the matter, saying the ruling reflected a careful and balanced assessment of the evidence presented by both sides. "The court was categorical that although Njaramba is the father of the two children left behind, that itself was not enough to prove he was entitled to the body," Kahiga said, adding that the court had agreed entirely with the family's position that no customary marriage had been conducted and that Sarah Njeri remained the person legally entitled to bury her daughter.
As the family now moves to finalise burial arrangements and give Rachel Wandeto her long-delayed farewell, public attention is swiftly turning back to the question that has hung over this entire period of grief and legal drama: who killed Rachel Wandeto, and will they face justice? Detectives are understood to be actively pursuing leads in the investigation into her killing. Her family and supporters have maintained an unrelenting call for justice, insisting that her murder must not go unsolved. The brutality of the attack — the image of a young gospel singer being set on fire on a Nairobi street — has continued to disturb and anger many Kenyans who followed her story.
For now, the family has their daughter back. The burial can proceed. But until the perpetrators of the attack that claimed Rachel Wandeto's life are identified, arrested, charged, and convicted, the wound left by her death will not fully close.
Don Sami Live will continue to follow all developments in the investigation into Rachel Wandeto's murder and the ongoing court proceedings. Stay with us for the latest updates on this story.