Christchurch cold case: Samuel Njuguna who fled to Kenya yet to be found after 2009 murder

Sixteen years after a brutal double attack in a quiet Christchurch suburb left one man dead and a wife fighting for her life, the man accused of the crime remains on the run. Samuel Njuguna fled to Kenya within hours of the 2009 killing — and has evaded capture ever since. Police say they haven’t stopped searching while Njuguna’s wife gets on with her life. Senior crime and justice journalist Anna Leask revisits the cold case.

It was sometime between midnight and 6am when all hell broke loose on a quiet Avonhead cul-de-sac.

On Saturday, September 12, 2009, Samuel Njuguna entered the house where his estranged wife, Lydiah Munene and sons had moved two weeks earlier.

Police say he violently attacked the 34-year-old nurse, leaving her for dead, and killed Steven Maina, a friend staying at the house. He took his sons and left.

At about 4pm, Njuguna dropped the 9 and 13-year-olds off at a friend’s place.

Then at 1pm the next day, he boarded a flight out of Christchurch to Kenya. At that stage, no one knew Maina was dead or that Munene was badly injured.

By late Monday, Munene’s friends were concerned after failing to hear from her. They called the police.

Officers found Maina’s body on the bedroom floor and Munene on a nearby bed.

Samuel Ngumo Njuguna is wanted for an alleged murder and attempted murder in Christchurch. He fled to Kenya hours after his wife was badly injured and her male friend killed.

She was rushed to hospital with severe head injuries and placed in an induced coma.

A homicide investigation, dubbed Operation Burrows, began.

Detectives were initially “unsure what has occurred” but said there were “indications that the husband may be involved”.

They believed a weapon was probably used, though they would not specify what or if it had been recovered.

Munene had left Njuguna and moved to the Avonhead property four weeks before the attack.

Police had been called to the address two weeks earlier after an argument over their separation, but reported no physical violence “on that occasion”.

Njuguna is thought to have arrived in Kenya on September 16, 2009, evading authorities entirely.

Detective Inspector Greg Williams, the initial officer in charge of Operation Burrows, said “in the first few days” of the investigation, he contacted Njuguna’s brother in Kenya, who “wanted to assist” and felt he “should return to New Zealand and be held accountable”.

The victims: Two families torn apart

Stephen Mwangi Maina, 39, was born in Kenya but moved to New Zealand about a year before his murder to support his wife and child.

At the time of his death, Maina lived in Ashburton and worked at a local freezing works. Njuguna’s brother had been a friend of Maina and helped him plan his move to Canterbury.

Maina’s family told Kenya’s Daily Nation he was a businessman and part-time DJ — “a well-known personality on the Nairobi party scene”.

Police launched massive probe after the killing and were tracing the movements of Njuguna's Peugot (inset). Photos / Simon Baker, Supplied

Known as Kay to friends and family, in October 2008, he borrowed some money from his mother for plane tickets and left Kenya.

The Daily Nation reported Maina later became involved in a “love triangle” with Munene and her estranged husband, though police never commented on the relationship.

Munene maintains they had only recently met before the alleged murder and were just friends.

After the attack, part of Munene’s skull was removed to relieve brain pressure, and a titanium plate was inserted.

The trauma caused her to lose English temporarily, and she had to relearn the language.

During its investigation into the cold case, the Herald reached out to Munene, who still lives in Christchurch 16 years on.

Through a spokesperson, she declined to speak about the attack and her hunt for her ex-husband.

“She said she has closed that chapter of her life and moved on,” he said.

Lydiah Munene before the attack on her. Photo / Facebook

In an interview a year after the alleged murder, she said she treated “every day as a gift”.

She was “smiling and thankful she is still alive to be a mother” and said she could forgive Njuguna.

“I don’t think about the past,” she said.

“I’m just thinking about my kids. It’s a gift to be alive. And that is why I have become a very positive person ... Once you forgive and forget, you just start getting other good things following you.”

Munene said she had no memory of the attack.

“I know what was done to me, but I don’t have any memory of that day,” she revealed.

She and Njuguna had lived in New Zealand for six years; she had qualified as a nurse and started at Christchurch Hospital not long before the ordeal.

After she was told what had happened to her, she prayed “seriously” at church.

“I just felt that God told me to relax and to forgive, and that is what I did,” she said.

She considered Maina a friend, “a good person who tragically was in the wrong place at the wrong time”.

The global hunt for Samuel Njuguna

Njuguna has now been on the run for 5873 days. Police believe he is alive and still in Kenya.

Interpol currently has a live Red Notice — an international wanted persons alert requesting law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest someone pending extradition or similar legal action.

Canterbury Police District Crime Manager Detective Inspector Greg Murton now oversees Operation Burrows.

Greg Murton. Photo / Jason Oxenham

He could not speak in detail about the 2009 incident, as he is hopeful that it still may go before the courts one day.

“Significant efforts were made to track Njuguna down in Kenya, to no avail. And since then, periodically, more inquiries have been done over there. But again, we haven’t had any success with that,” he said.

“His brother has been contacted fairly regularly, too, but he claims that he had no contact with him either.”

Murton said that since the latest Red Notice, no leads had come in about Njuguna’s possible whereabouts.

There was no indication he had left Kenya — and nothing to suggest he was no longer alive.

“We suspect he’s still there, but who would know?” he said.

“If he’s found by police, he would be arrested, and then we’d seek extradition. That’s a process that can take a long time or it can be quite quick — depending on if we’ve got a mutual legal assistance treaty with that country.”

New Zealand does not have a dedicated extradition treaty with Kenya, but authorities there have been cooperative.

Murton said he would be “surprised” if anyone outside the police knew Njuguna’s whereabouts. His closest connections and family were in Kenya, and he was confident police there would pick up anyone “hiding” the accused killer.

Interpol has issued a Red Notice in the hunt for Samuel Ngumo Njuguna.

Outside the Red Notice, police can only wait.

Leads are followed as they come in, but Murton said his team is “a little bit hamstrung”.

“We can’t exactly fly over and start doing inquiries ourselves, so we’re reliant on the Kenyan police to do those inquiries if there’s any indication of where he might be,” he explained.

Murton said it is “hard to know” when Njuguna will emerge.

“One way or the other, he will. But you’re up against […] massive populations in Kenya, so it’s very difficult. It’s very easy for someone to get there and stay hidden," he said.

“New Zealand’s a small country... it’s got a very small population, so it’s harder to hide here. But if you go to these big cities… you can hide in plain sight.

“He could be anywhere. Some countries are easier to get into than others, but he’s most likely still in Kenya, just keeping his head down and maybe changing his name.”

Murton doubted any appeal would convince Njuguna to surrender.

“The message to him would be, this isn’t going away, and the inquiries are still being conducted. He’s got a vested interest in not presenting himself, but we’re not going to stop looking for him, so he’ll always be looking over his shoulder.”

The homicide file remains active.

“It’s a bit like the Kirstie Bentley case and others, the John Reynolds case, they’re always active,” he said.

“Even if proactive inquiries aren’t being conducted, they’re always open in case new information comes through. In this case, all the inquiry work has been done. It’s just finding him as the issue.

“But once we’ve done that, we can present the case at trial and go from there.

“These cases — they don’t go away, and we don’t give up. We’ll keep going.”

Anna Leask is a senior journalist who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 19 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz