Friends Pub Majimbo on the outskirts of Embu town is the kind of joint where business deals are struck over beer and roast meat.

But on the night of September 19, 2022, the trust associated with such meetings was, according to the family of businessman Geoffrey Mwangi Ashiford, weaponised against him.

The family believes the tycoon was lured to the pub under the guise of a business meeting before being handed over to his killers.

The moment he stepped out of the pub, waiting gunmen pursued him for less than a kilometre before spraying him with bullets.

Mr Ashiford survived the shooting and was rushed to hospital, where he spent time in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). But even as he lay fighting for his life, his family claims people suspected to be connected to the attack visited the hospital to establish whether he had died.

Hospital management, according to the family, turned them away.

Mr Ashiford eventually died on February 15, 2023, but his death opened another battle this time over his property with allegations of forged documents, disputed land transactions and a web of individuals whose names have emerged in both the property dispute and the murder investigation.

At the centre of the property dispute is Lucy Wanjiku Nyaga, a tenant in one of Mr Ashiford’s properties, a mansion that earns Sh50,000 in monthly rent and is currently valued at about Sh20 million.

Ms Nyaga is accused of forging the deceased’s signatures on documents she used to claim ownership of the property. She denies the allegations.

Mr Ashiford was shot in the head, neck and fingers, according to his death certificate. Joseph Karanja Mbugua, who was in the company of the deceased at the time of the shooting, escaped unhurt. Mr Mbugua had also been present at an earlier meeting at Friends Pub Majimbo before the shooting.

Ms Nyaga, who was the person Ashiford had gone to meet at the pub, told detectives in her statement that she had invited Mbugua to the meeting to discuss business matters.

The circumstances surrounding the meeting and the subsequent shooting have therefore become a key part of the family's questions about what happened to Mr Ashiford.

Geoffrey Mwangi Ashiford who was shot on September, 19, 2022 in Embu town and succumbed to the gunshots wounds on February 15, 2023.

Photo credit: Pool

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Court filings show that Ms Nyaga had expressed interest in buying the property which was valued at about Sh6 million at the time. Ashiford’s widow Loise Nyambura Mwangi has told the court that there was only a verbal intention to sell and that no formal agreement had been executed.

Ms Nyaga, however, claims that negotiations began in late 2019 and were formalised in February 2021. She says she initially paid Sh735,000 and later settled the remaining Sh5.65 million using 90 cows and 243 goats for the purchase of land parcel Gaturi/Githimu/2670, measuring 0.085 hectares.

There was also an alternative arrangement according to court filings under which Ms Nyaga was to surrender six acres to Mr Ashiford in exchange for the property she was renting from him.

The six acres were part of an inheritance under succession proceedings in which Ms Nyaga was a beneficiary following the death of her late husband, who had three wives.

But investigations by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) later raised questions about the authenticity of the documents Ms Nyaga was relying on to claim ownership.

A forensic document examination report prepared by Kiplagat Kimaiwa of the DCI in Nairobi concluded that the signatures attributed to Mr Ashiford on the disputed documents were not his.

The DCI subsequently recommended that Nyaga be prosecuted alongside her lawyer Victor L Andande, who was involved in drafting the contested agreement.

Joseph Karanja Mbugua was also recommended for prosecution over alleged forgery and fraud.

The forensic examiner found that the questioned signatures and the deceased's known signatures were made by different people.

“I have examined and compared the questioned signatures enclosed and pointed by two pencil arrows on the exhibit marked B1-B4 with the known signatures enclosed with pencil on exhibit marked A1-A5; the signatures were made by different authors. The findings are based on dissimilarities in the following individual penmanship characteristics: pen movement, slant, initial and terminal strokes, pen lifts, baseline alignment, height ratio, medial strokes, line and letter spacing and general resemblance,” the document examiner report reads in part.

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The Director of Public Prosecutions in a letter dated September 26, 2024, to the DCI Embu West, under case file number 411/42/2023, recommended that Ms Nyaga be charged with conspiracy to defraud, contrary to Section 317 of the Penal Code, and forgery, contrary to Section 345 as read with Section 349.

The prosecutor also recommended that Mr Andande and Mr Mbugua be made prosecution witnesses against Ms Nyaga.

Despite the recommendations, however, the three have not been charged nearly two years later

All three deny involvement in fraud or forgery.

On June 24, 2026, Embu Magistrate J Otieno delivering judgment in Environment and Land Court case number E067 of 2023 ordered Ms Nyaga to vacate the disputed property and directed that the costs of eviction be recovered from her.

The court found inconsistencies in her account of how she acquired the property.

Crime Scene — Ashiford’s family believes the tycoon was lured to a popular pub under the guise of a business meeting before being handed over to his killers.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

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Among the issues that emerged was Nyaga's statement to investigators on September 21, 2022, two days after the shooting in which she said there was no formal agreement between her and Ashiford.

She later produced a sale agreement dated October 19, 2019 which surfaced on February 13, 2023, a day before Mr Ashiford died.

The court also noted that at the time Ms Nyaga claimed to have purchased the property, it had not yet been transferred to Mr Ashiford by its legal owner Margaret Wambui Murage. The transfer to Mr Ashiford was only formalised on December 7, 2022, nearly three months after the alleged sale agreement.

The forensic evidence further weakened Ms Nyaga's claim.

“The document examiner’s testimony and his report reveal that forensic examination of the signatures on the impugned agreement, the acknowledgements as well as the cheque leaves was that the signatures on all these documents were not made by the deceased. Worth noting is that the examiner was categorical that he had the benefit of examining the original documents,” the magistrate said.

Ms Nyaga has appealed the decision at the Court of Appeal arguing that the alleged agreement she entered into with Mr Ashiford was disregarded. She denies forgery and conspiracy to defraud.

Mr Andande and Mr Mbugua have also denied involvement in the alleged fraud and forgery.

Mr Ashiford's widow, Loise Nyambura Mwangi, has told investigators and the court that her husband had travelled to Embu for work and, on the morning of September 19, 2022, visited the disputed property intending to evict Ms Nyaga after their verbal arrangement failed to materialise.

Ms Nyambura believes the property dispute may have been linked to her husband's death.

In court filings, she has accused Ms Nyaga of being involved in his murder and of attempting to defraud the family of its property.

“That the defendant has been materially and irredeemably inconsistent, leading to only one conclusion that she is aware or is involved with the events leading to the murder of my husband and has orchestrated an elaborate scheme to defeat the ends of justice,” she says in her filings.

The allegations remain unproven and Ms Nyaga has denied involvement in Mr Ashiford's killing.

Nearly four years after the shooting, the people who killed Mr Ashiford have never been apprehended.

His family says the lack of progress has left them frustrated, exhausted and living in fear even as they continue to fight a separate battle over his property.

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Sciuri@ke.nationmedia.com