A jailbird was yesterday morning killed as his girlfriend was seriously assaulted as a sour love triangle also saw three houses burnt in Kakrao village, Suna East constituency amid a stand-off with police.
Police were forced to lob teargas canisters and shot in the air to scare angry villagers who had managed to repulse them with stones and other crude weapons as they burnt the houses.
Traffic along the busy Migori-Kisii highway was suspended for hours as villagers blocked roads to prevent police vehicles from accessing suspects homes.
Last night, Felix Ayodo, 24, is said to have assaulted his girlfriend after accusing her of having an affair with their neighbour while he had locked up in jail.
Ayodo, a suspected drug peddler was among prisoners recently released by custody at Migori GK Prison by government as a measure to avoid congestion in prisons as a measure against coronavirus.
While the village was in curfew, a night of assault and counter-fight between the three loves roped in a Nyumba Kumi elder only identified as Alfred who came in to help.
Samuel Onyango, a resident said Ayodo was fighting with his girlfriend and the other boyfriend, when a Nyumba Kumi elder came in to separate them and took the woman to a local dispensary after she was left bleeding from assault wounds.
He said when the nyumba kumi elder came back, he together with the other estranged boyfriend-neighbour are accused to have beaten to death Ayodo in retaliation.
Irate villagers who called in area Suna Lower assistant chief Wilfred Onyango expecting the elder to be arrested were annoyed when police only took Ayodo’s body and refused to arrest any suspect.
Irate villagers engaged police officers in running battles as they pelted them with stones baying for the blood of the woman, estranged boyfriend and the nyumba kumi elder.
Another villager said police let the three people to escape forcing them to burn down their three homesteads with everything in them, insisting that they demand justice for Ayodo because even if he was a jail bird he did not deserve such a cruel death.
It forced Suna North location chief Goretty Duya and his area assistant to call in for more reinforcement to contain the villagers who wanted to also torch Onyango’s homestead and office accusing him of using his nyumba kumi elders to assault and intimidate them.
Duya said residents complaining of rising insecurity and harassment should have left police to do their work, adding that they will seek the arrest of the woman, the boyfriend and the elder. Those who incited villagers will also be arrested.
She termed the incident as unfortunate insisting they will increase patrols in the area until calm is restored.
