LATEST: Police have named the man who was killed in a house in Avonhead as Stephen Mwangi Maina, a 38 year-old freezing worker from Ashburton.
Detective Inspector Greg Williams said he died as a result of significant injuries.
Maina arrived in New Zealand in October last year. His mother in Kenya and brother in Australia had been told of his death.
Police are appealing for sightings of a red car belonging to Samuel Ngumo Njuguna who fled New Zealand on Sunday.
His estranged wife Lydia Munene was found with severe head injuries and the body of Maina were found in bed together in a house in Burrows Place, Avonhead on Monday.
Munene may have lain seriously injured in the flat for several days before she and the body of Maina were found by a visitor at 6pm.
Investigators were tracking the movements of a red 1995 Peugot Saloon with licence plate TH4438.
Williams said the investigation is now focused on the events of Friday evening through to the early hours of Saturday morning.
“We believe that the children were removed from Burrows Place sometime early on Saturday morning between midnight and 6am, by their father.
“It appears that this is also the likely time the two people were attacked in the house,” he said.
Njuguna went to the Flight Centre at The Palms in Shirley at 9am on Saturday and obtained tickets to travel to Kenya.
He travelled via Auckland, Sydney, Bangkok before arriving in Kenya on Monday.
Families of the deceased and of Lydiah Munene have been contacted by police and are “devastated” by the news.
Williams said work would continue at Burrow Pl and at 33 Patrick St for the next couple of days.
Munene is in an induced coma and will be so for the next few days.
Williams said the small Kenyan community in Christchurch had “bonded together in support of each other” and police were working closely with them.
Munene had lived in New Zealand for several years with her husband, Samuel Ngumo Njuguna, and their two sons, aged 13 and nine.
She recently started work as a nurse at Christchurch Hospital. She was in an induced coma today.
“We believe the man and woman were well on Friday,” Williams said. “We don’t know, between Friday and when we found the bodies, when this occurred. There are indications the husband may be involved.”
Njuguna dropped his children off at a friend’s house at 4pm on Saturday before catching an early morning flight to Kenya from Christchurch International Airport on Sunday. He arrived in Kenya at 6am on Monday.
“[On Monday night] we spoke with Interpol and they are making contact with people over there,” Williams said.
“We know he is in Kenya. The issue is what he is going to do. We want to talk to him.”
New Zealand did not have an extradition agreement with Kenya, Williams said. “If we have to take action, that will be done at a diplomatic level.”
Police had attended a domestic dispute between Munene and Njuguna about two weeks ago. There had been no physical assault in that incident, Williams said.
A security guard was at a Mairehau house jointly owned by Munene and Njuguna yesterday.
Friends expressed shock at the man’s murder and the attack on a “lovely, sympathetic” woman who had recently graduated as a nurse from the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology.
“She seems really, really nice and is making such a fantastic go of things,” landlord Margaret Dawson said.
“I just feel so terribly shocked because she has made so much of an effort to make such a life for herself and her children. Her two boys are very tall, good-looking, charming, lively, intelligent and lovely.”
Munene had spoken “unfavourably” of Njuguna, she said.
“I gathered he was well out of the picture. Why could he not get on with his life and leave her alone? There is no need for domestic violence,” Dawson said.
A friend from the Kenyan community who declined to be named said she last saw the family together at a barbecue last December, and they all seemed happy.
“We are all shocked. I have not seen them for months,” she said.
“I have just come back from Africa myself. She is lovely.
“We last met in December and had a laugh and were having fun happy kids, happy mother and happy father.
“I knew she was studying … She said that she had hardly seen anyone because she was so busy studying.”
They had not met the friend but they understood he had only recently moved to New Zealand.
Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz
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