Lynn murder suspect faces multiple charges

LYNN – As Esther Kinyanjui’s life ebbed out of her in a Highlands basement Monday night, Officer Paul Wonoski grabbed a sheet from a pile of laundry and pressed it against her neck to stop the bleeding while partner Titou Kim swept Kinyanjui’s one year-old daughter into his arms and rushed her from the room.Kinyanjui was too seriously wounded to survive but Wonoski and Titou’s fellow officers tracked the man charged with murdering her to an East Lynn apartment where they found Patrick Waweru under the influence of medication he swallowed in a suicide attempt.Waweru, 28, will spend the next 20 days in Bridgewater State Hospital after being arraigned Wednesday in District Court on several charges including murder.A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf and court psychologist Dr. Laurie Humbert declared Waweru “competent” adding, “There is a reasonable question of criminal responsibility.”His attorney said Waweru has been under treatment for bipolar illness. He had also traded allegations of domestic violence since 2000 with Kinyanjui, with whom he fathered two daughters.Assistant District Attorney Kate MacDougall said Waweru convinced Kinyanjui to drive from Delaware, where she moved in June with her mother and children, to Lynn, claiming he needed her help to resolve a legal matter affecting both of them.She met him Monday to go to court, but he admitted he made up the claim before tying her up and threatening to kill her. She got him to release her Monday night by promising to retrieve her possessions in Delaware and return to live with him in Massachusetts.Kinyanjui drove to her sister’s 130 Adams St. home before 10 p.m. Monday and Waweru stayed in the car while she told her sister and mother what he had done to her.”Patrick knocked on the door,” Kinyanjui’s mother, Ruth, told police. “They resisted opening the door. She said Patrick kicked the door. She said he had wood in his hand. She said he said, ‘I have to kill Esther.'”Waweru hit Kinyanjui’s sister on the head with a two foot-long board then struck Kinyanjui. Her 57-year-old mother leapt onto Waweru’s back as he pulled a knife secured to one of his legs and began stabbing Esther Kinyanjui in the neck. Prosecutors said he stabbed her a total of 20 times.Waweru told police and a doctor who interviewed him Tuesday before charging him with Kinyanjui’s death that he had been feeling suicidal since last Friday and, on Sunday, “was thinking of killing my girlfriend.”