Woman Moves to Court to Stop Matungu MP Justus Murunga's Funeral

A woman identified as Agnes Wangui Wambiri has filed a case seeking to stop Matungu MP Justus Murunga’s burial.

She wants the burial of the deceased put on hold until she and her two children are recognized as family and be allowed to participate in funeral plans.

Wangui in a suit filed under a certificate of urgency at the Milimani law courts seeks an order for preservation of the MP’s body pending the hearing and determination of her case.

She further wants the court to order the collection of DNA samples from Murunga’s body and her kids for comparison and confirmation of their paternity.

The petitioner says she entered into a romantic relationship with Murunga in 2012, leading to the birth of the two minors aged seven and three years. 

The two allegedly met in Nairobi when the deceased was a supervisor at Embakasi Ranching while she was a trader selling beverages and snacks within the Sewage area in Ruai.

“All along the deceased intimated to me that he lived at Utawala with Ms. Christabel Murunga and thus around May 2016 he rented a house for me and our son in Ruai,” Wangui says through lawyer Danstan Omari.

The MP, she says, used to foot her monthly rent and maintenance costs through MPesa but their relationship got rocky after he won the election in 2017.

“The deceased never wanted the public nor his family to learn of the existence of these two children, and even denied me his identification card for purposes of procuring birth certificates for the children,” she says, adding that the minors are Murunga’s biological children.

“Prior to his death, I had spoken to him on November 12, 2020, checking up on him after being discharged from hospital. He sent me Sh1,300 for a gas refill and later Sh4,000 as maintenance costs.” 

Wangui also asked the court to issue an order barring Lee Funeral Home from releasing the MP’s remains pending the determination of the case.

Murunga succumbed to Covid-19 while being taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in Mumias last Saturday.