looooong read copy paste
Betty Tett and the
Hitman
The anatomy of a murder
conspiracy
Sometime in late 2014, a lanky,
dark 50-year-old man with a
fierce demeanor and a criminal
past drove a Prado into the Uhuru
Park lot. The lot cuts through the
park from Kenyatta Avenue to
Haile Selassie, and of all the
spaces within the park that offer
anonymity, it is the most fluid and
open.
The man, John Linus Wachira,
was there to meet Betty Tett, a
former Nominated MP. Seated in
the back seat of Betty’s car,
Wachira later told the police, he
was briefed on an elaborate,
albeit still sketchy plan. She
needed him to kill a guy, a
business rival, and promised to
pay Shs. 200, 000 to get started.
He was clearly the man for the
job, as his criminal record past
shows a man with considerable
credentials in the shady
underworld. For his extensive
connections, his fellow remandees
during his earlier stints called him
The Chairman.
The October meeting, according to
Wachira’s statement in the
original court files, featured
Betty’s biological son Ken Tett. In
Wachira’s story, Ken was his
mums right hand man. He did
most of the actual leg work while
his mum provided the ideas and
the money. Ken drove Wachira to
find the quarry, Andrew White,
Betty’s business rival. Wachira
claimed he was paid 200,000 and
then 100,000. His asking price for
the entire job came to 3 million,
and in his statement, Wachira
counted his total payments at that
point to 1.5 million. He used Shs.
70,000 to buy a motorbike at the
end of November, which the police
would found in his rural home
after he was caught. The deadline
was December 12 .
The Connection between Betty and
Wachira
John Linus Wachira, from Katheru
in Kerugoya, is an ambitious
crook with the right connections.
Wachira has prominent vitiligo
that peaks on the right side of his
lips, near the edge, looking like a
piece of light duct tape or an old
scar. Because of it, he sub-
consciously purses his lips. Body
language classes teach that pursed
lips may indicate frustration but
in most cases, are a classic
indicator of suppressed anger.
WACHIRA-LINUS Capital
Wachira in court. [Image
from Capital FM]
In his first statement to the police,
written out in Kiswahili, he
claimed he met the motherly
former legislator long before
December 2014. He worked in her
campaign team, a claim she
denied repeatedly. The part they
both agreed on was that they
communicated via David Tett,
Betty Tett’s adopted son, when
David and Wachira were both in
remand in 2011.
In September 2011, David, known
to his family as Billy, grabbed the
headlines in a bizarre story where
he attempted to murder his father
in a violent midday robbery. He
and two accomplices raided his
parents home in Karen at 1 pm on
September 6 , 2011 and robbed
the older Tett of Shs. 157, 000
worth of items and cash. Betty
wasn’t at home at the time, but
inexplicably called the police to go
to her house. The two other
robbers were shot dead, but David
somehow managed to drive out of
the compound and was only later
arrested on Mombasa Road.
The details of the robbery itself
vary depending on who is telling
the story. According to his father,
David and his two accomplices
robbed the home. David tried to
shoot him at some point but the
gun did not fire. According to
David, the robbers carjacked him
and used him to get into his
parents’ home. They were both
shot and killed in a gunfight after
a farmhand raised the alarm and
alerted the police. Mysteriously,
the bodies of the two dead
accomplices were found naked
when the police arrived.
David had a troubled past, losing
his biological mum at an early
age. According to an extensive
interview his foster mother gave
after his conviction, he had
impregnated a girl when he was
17. He then quit school and
disappeared for several years,
returning as a prodigal son. He
was found guilty and handed the
death penalty. In his appeal, he
drew an elaborate conspiracy
involving his parents and siblings,
the three other children of the
prominent couple.
David “Billy” and his mum Betty.
David “Billy” and his mum
Betty.
Image from
Mwakilishi.com
In remand prison, he met
Wachira. The precise relationship
between the two of them is still
sketchy. Betty would later say that
Wachira began feeding her
information on her sons
continuing plans to kill her and
her husband. Billy, on the other
hand, quietly filed a complaint
that someone in his block was
trying to kill him. He said the
person, Wachira, had been hired
and been paid by his mum to
poison him while in prison. The
two stories didn’t tally but for the
fact that someone, either mother
or son, was trying to kill the other.
And that Wachira was somehow
involved, two years before the
story of an elaborate albeit
careless murder conspiracy
occupied the New Years Eve
headlines.
Cell Phone Records show strong Link
In Betty’s version, she and
Wachira hardly knew each other.
Her statement suspiciously poked
holes on all the points Wachira
had made in his, a point-by-point
rebuttal. She was even given the
opportunity to record another
statement, two days later, to refute
an allegation he had made that
shed missed in the first one. It
wasn’t a relationship, she argued,
but more of her occasionally
helping him because he constantly
needed support for his family. She
said she tried to avoid taking his
calls.
A recently leaked phone-record
report, part of which formed the
original investigation file, shows
over 124 mobile phone calls
between Betty Tett and John
Wachira during the last two
months of 2014. Communication
between Betty and Wachira began
to build in November 2014, the
same time he said he got the job.
That same month, another long
call happened, lasting around 9
minutes and was immediately
followed by a call by Betty to her
imprisoned son David.
On one of the days Wachira
claimed they met at Uhuru Park,
9 December 2014, both their
phones pinged on cell towers
around the park. Betty’s pinged at
the nearby Capitol Hill Towers one
for 30 minutes. There was
communication almost daily in
December, and it seems the initial
deadline was shifted. On
December 23 , 2 days before
Wachira made contact with
Andrew White, Wachira and Betty
exchanged several calls in the
morning, immediately followed by
a flurry of calls from Betty to KCB,
then another dozen calls to
Wachira and then back to KCB.
She later, again, called her
imprisoned son. Whatever was
happening, Billy may well have
been in on it.
The deadline shifted several times.
Wachira called Betty on the 24
of December, at 11:49 am, and
they exchanged six more calls
before 1:20 pm. In the afternoon,
Wachira switched to texts, saying
in his first one “ Mum, though ur
not happy, I as ur son will make u
happy don mind. So pls assist me
with 20000 for Christmas I will
shot u out by January pls pls help
or u send thanks gdy and happy
Christmas.” The most interesting
of these texts was sent at 5:09 pm
and said “ Martha karua harisema
ata fanya kazi kama amefungwo
mdomo even me I av given up
nasita kupigea tena peana
kazi” (Martha Karua said she
wouldnt work if her mouth was
shut, even me Ive given up I wont
call again, give the job to someone
else).
On Christmas Day, Wachira woke
up the next morning to a call from
Betty that lasted 15 mins. Soon
after Wachira sent her an SMS
reading “ Then what Im going 2 do
don brame me . He took it a notch
further Mungu moja umenitesa
yakutosha. Wacha nikose kwenda
Christmas nawe don regret it will
be read in tha newspaper
2morrow” (I swear you have
tortured me enough so fine, let me
not have Christmas and also you
then dont regret it will be read in
the newspaper tomorrow).
At 2 pm, Wachira made good his
threat and drove to Andrew
White’s home. From police file
statements it seems that Wachira
had never been told White’s
name, poking a rather large hole
in David Tett’s later statement that
he had given Andrew’s name and
number to Wachira. When
Andrew’s guard asked Wachira
who he wanted to see, Wachira
said “the mzee”. The guard replied
“you mean Andrew”
As the guard went to fetch White,
Wachira sent a text to Betty from
Andrew White’s gate reading
simply “Tha man is called
Andrew.” Wachira had struck
home.
In the next few days, Wachira and
Andrew exchanged 33 SMSs. The
would-be hitman outlined the plan
to kill White by someone “high in
Government”, and demanded Shs.
3 million as refund for backing
off. Andrew lured him to a
meeting within the next few days
that ended up with his being
arrested at Safari Park at 1:20
pm. As soon as the story hit the
evening bulletin, Betty called a
lawyer, John Were, who would
become Wachiras lawyer. Were
completed an interesting triangle
that pulled at cross-purposes over
the next few days.
When she finally turned up at the
police station, after first claiming
she had been hospitalized for an
ultrasound, Betty refuted
Wachira’s murder plot story
completely. She had sent Wachira
money to help different members
of his family, and only
remembered meeting him at the
St. Paul’s Church parking lot. But
that didn’t explain why she
seemed to have furnished him
with a lawyer and continued to
help him after he had accused her
of leading the conspiracy.
A clear-cut case crumbles
On Wednesday the 31 of
December, Wachira was taken to
court to take a plea. And Betty got
a text from Wachira through a
court bailiff. The text simply said
“ Niko court namimi mgojwa sana
ata ni pelekwa Kenyatta usiku pls
timana pesa ya bond thanks
Wachiira” (I’m in court and Im
very sick I was even rushed to
Kenyatta hospital at night please
send bond money thanks
Wachiira). Betty called 11 minutes
later for 12 seconds and tried
later at 10:38am after calling
Wachira’s lawyer, John Were.
The case fluctuated over the next
few months, with the investigation
running over hurdles that
suggested a conspiracy to kill off
the story. It was multi-pronged
and devilishly effective, managing
to stunt the obvious eagerness
with which the initial
investigation officers had gotten
the case prosecuted. Wachira
recanted his initial statement,
claiming he had lied to the police.
Billy, in prison, made a curious
statement that absolved his mother
of all blame and solely blamed
Wachira as an extortionist. It was
suspect because it “explained” a
complaint he had made to prison
authorities on 3 September
2012, claiming Wachira had
confessed to him he had been sent
by Betty to kill him through
poisoning. That report included
evidence that Betty had sent
Wachira Shs. 6, 000 for the job.
David also claimed that Wachira
had learnt of Andrew White
through him, two years prior, and
not through his mum.
David closes the statement with
“my mother has not visited me or
talked to me,” suggesting he was
doing it of his own volition. He
left out the part where he had
openly confessed to owning a
phone in prison. In the forensic
audit of the phone records, David
and his mum had talked,
repeatedly, before and during the
time Wachira claimed he was
given the job to kill Andrew
White.
Almost everything else fell like a
deck of cards after that. To help
absolve Betty and remove her
name from the charge sheet, the
police retrieved only a statement
of her Standard Chartered bank
account and conveniently ignored
her KCB one. The audit of phone
records, partially rebuilt after
Wachira’s phone was seized, was
ignored. Charges were dropped by
the DPP as evidence of payments
could not be established. And the
charge against Wachira was
dropped to the lesser crime of
feeding false information to a
public officer. Wachira was taken
at his word that he had never
banked more than Shs.100, 000.
His bank statements showed he
had had barely Shs.10, 000 at the
end of November 2014 but he still
purchased a Kshs 70,000
motorbike in cash.
In the months in-between these
two events, Andrew Whites lawyer
at the time, Cliff Ombeta, claimed
the DPP was under intense
political pressure to drop the case.
The pressure worked, roaring
through Kenya’s justice system to,
first, cut the prominent lady from
the case and then get the would-be
assassin off the hook. Phone
records from Betty and Wachira’s
lines were within the file but they
were conveniently ignored, killing
off the link that Wachira had
sensationally claimed in his initial
statement.