The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Isaac Tiharihondi, son of a Ugandan Houston-based pastor, was recently sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to the January 2015 murder of his parents and brother in Texas, US.
Tiharihondi bludgeoned his Ugandan father, Episcopal priest Israel Ahimbisibwe, 51, and mother Dorcus then fatally stabbed his 5-year-old brother, Israel Ahimbisibwe, Jr.
While in court February 1, 2016, Tiharihondi admitted to the crime and also thanked his supporters before he was sentenced. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Investigators believe Tiharihondi killed his family at their apartment in the 870 block of Strey Lane, not far from Memorial City Mall. Court documents show Tiharihondi used a lamp, baseball bat and a hammer to kill his parents and he stabbed his little brother with a kitchen knife, KHOU.com reported.
His parents had planned to confront him, after he reportedly lied about enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps. But, it wasn’t proven in court if that was a motive for the slaying, HoustonPress reported.
When Tiharihondi’s brother, Emmanuel Ahimbisibwe, the surviving member of the family, last spoke to his parents, his mom, Dorcus told him that she and his father, Israel, an Episcopal priest, believed their son was lying about having been given a place in the military.
Police said Tiharihondi stole his parents’ credit cards to help him flee the state. He was later arrested in Jackson, Miss. and did not fight extradition to Texas.
Family and friends of Tiharihondi told KHOU that they believed Tiharihondi may have suffered from mental illness, possibly caused by a head injury that left him in a coma for several days when he was six, or concussions sustained from once falling off a cliff and from years of playing football. Any illness, his attorney said, was never professionally diagnosed.
The bodies were returned to Uganda early last year, and at the burial Apollo Kashanku, a brother of Dorcus, thanked the Redeemer Episcopal Church in Texas where the couple was working. He said the church enabled the bodies to be brought back for a burial at Israel’s ancestral home in Kateete, Masheruka in Sheema district.
“The cost of bringing these bodies was over $100,000. If we did not have the support of their church, we would not have been able to bring them back,” Kashanku said.
Ahimbisibwe, was vicar of Church of the Redeemer Episcopal in Houston, US. Before moving to the US, he had been ordained in Uganda.
