Maid tells it all about Kimara woman’s death

Dar es Salaam. The house-help in the Dar es Salaam home where one Mercy Mukandara died in suspicious circumstances, has recounted the last minutes leading to the incident which is now under police investigation.

Until yesterday, police in Dar es Salaam were still holding Mr Eric Samson for questioning in connection with the suspicious death of his wife Mercy whose body was found lying in a pool of blood in the couple’s bedroom at the city’s Kimara suburb on Tuesday night.

The maid - identified as Harrieth Daison - spoke for the first time yesterday since the death last week of her employer. The incident took place at night in the family’s house in Kimara.

She was interviewed by a local online station, Wanawakelive, and told of an apparent coldness of the couple she worked for in the days leading to the fateful night.

She said the deceased and her husband Eric Samson were not on talking terms for about a week and had a tussle on the fateful night. She said she had never seen the couple in that state since she started working for them. Samson is being held by the police over the death.
“They were not in talking terms for about a week leading to the incident. It was unusual - and I had not seen them behave that way the whole time I have worked for them,” she said.

She said the couple would do everything together, and even pray together at meals but this had stopped. “They were cold towards each other and did not speak to each other like in the past.
“On the day that the incident happened, Mercy arrived home at about 7pm and asked me to fix her water to bathe. She then ate and went to bed shortly saying she needed to wake up early the following day.”

According to her, sometime after 11pm, Samson arrived home and sat watching TV for some time with their child. A little after midnight, he took the child to bed in the room where the maid also sleeps.
“He went to their bedroom and I drifted off to sleep. But after a while I was woken up by some noise and banging on the wall. I heard Mercy crying out that she was dying but I did not take it seriously. I thought it was the couple fighting - and I went back to sleep.
“But, at around 2am, Samson came into our room asking to use my phone but I told him it had no credit. He was breathing heavily,” she said. She said the power had gone off, although it was on when she heard the couple quarreling in their bedroom.

The house-help said Samson then went out to look for help from neighbours while explaining that there had been a short-circuit - which made his wife to rush out and in the rush hit her head on a table, making her bleeding profusely.

Harrieth said she took a torch and peeped into the room where she saw Mercy lying still, with a crack in her skull. “I started crying and called for neighbours to come and see what had happened

Mercy’s mother speaks
Mercy’s mother, Restuta Mukandara, said during the paying of last respects to her daughter in Mwanza Region yesterday that she spoke to her daughter for about 45 minutes shortly before she met her fate.
She told The Citizen that information about her daughter’s death came shortly after she had spoken to her when she (the deceased) revealed that there was a misunderstanding in her marriage.
“She had informed me that there was a misunderstanding between her and her husband. She said her husband was involved in an extra-marital affair with three more women,” she told Mwananchi at her Nyabulogoya Street home, Nyegezi in Mwanza, yesterday.
“We spoke for 45 minutes. At around 11:00pm, she sent me a message that we could speak again tomorrow. At around 4:30am my son Kaiza Mkandara, came to my room with a message that she had received a phone call, informing him that his sister had died,” she said.

She said at first, they got information from the deceased’s brother in-law that Mercy died after her head hit a table as she was trying to run away after the lights went out.
“But I did not believe that explanation,” said Ms Restuta Mukandara, asking the government to thoroughly investigate the matter and discover what actually caused her daughter’s sudden death.
Reported by Johari Shani and Aurea Semtowe