By Tim Binnall
In a strange story out of Kenya, a pair of thieves returned a cow that they had stolen after a witch doctor cast a spell that unleashed a swarm of bees upon them. The bizarre case reportedly began last Thursday in the city of Embu when Lilian Waithera noticed that someone had taken the livestock from her property. Although she reported the theft to police, it would seem that the woman did not want to wait for authorities to track down the culprits and, as such, enlisted a witch doctor to administer some supernatural justice on her behalf. Just two days later, authorities were stunned when two men stumbled into the local police station with both the stolen the cow and a painful predicament that was literally on their hands.
According to Waithera, the ne'er-do-wells had been trying to sell the stolen cow at a local market when they suddenly found themselves being attacked by bees. The agitated insects enveloped the hands of one of the men and began repeatedly stinging him. Assuming that the swarm was somehow brought about by their theft of the livestock, the pair headed to the local police station with the animal, confessed to the crime, and begged for helpl. Connecting the stolen cow to Waithera, cops called the woman, who revealed that she had hired a witch doctor to help retrieve the cow and, apparently, his spell was a success.
While the odd account of crime and justice might sound like some kind of local scuttlebutt, a rather unsettling video from Embu shows one of the thieves marching towards the police station with his hands covered in bees and then wailing in agony outside of the building as the swarm mercilessly stung him. Amazingly, he was finally able to find relief after police brought the sorcerer to the location and he, in turn, performed a fairly simple-looking ritual which caused the insects to stop their attack. Although everything seemed to work out for Waithera, local officials have asked residents to refrain from hiring sorcerers to solve crimes and, instead, trust police to get the job done. That said, considering how successful the witch doctor was, that may wind up being something of a hard sell.