A Kenyan truck driver based in the United States has been sentenced to six years in state prison following a fatal road-rage incident on the New Jersey Turnpike that claimed the life of another trucker.
Joseph Nyandwaro, a 41-year-old Kenyan national residing in Pearland, Texas, was convicted over a crash that occurred on Sunday, June 22, 2025.
The accident occured along the northbound lanes of the New Jersey Turnpike in Woolwich Township, Gloucester County.
Authorities established that Nyandwaro, who was driving a tractor-trailer at the time, intentionally rammed another tractor-trailer during what investigators described as a road-rage encounter.
The violent collision resulted in the death of the other driver, later identified as 40-year-old Osman Aden.
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Investigators relied heavily on dash-camera footage recovered from both trucks, which police obtained in July 2025.
The footage confirmed the sequence of events leading up to the crash and reportedly showed Nyandwaro laughing after the collision.
Officials noted that it remains unclear whether he was aware at that moment that Aden had been killed.
Further evidence linked Nyandwaro directly to the crash.
Police found remnants of Aden’s truck paint on Nyandwaro’s vehicle, and investigators accused him of attempting to conceal evidence by using duct tape and cleaning solutions to remove traces of the collision.
Nyandwaro later pleaded guilty to second-degree vehicular homicide.
On Wednesday, January 4, a judge at the Gloucester County Superior Court handed down a six-year state prison sentence.
This comes over a month after a Kenyan-born US Army staff sergeant was sentenced to 26 years in prison after pleading guilty to killing his wife during a domestic dispute at their Texas home earlier this year.
According to news reports, Staff Sgt. John Gitau Mwangi admitted to the unpremeditated murder of his wife, US Army Sgt. Esther Gitau, during a court-martial held on Friday, December 12, at the Lawrence Williams Judicial Center.
The military judge also ordered Mwangi to forfeit all pay and allowances, reduced his rank to E-1, and handed him a dishonorable discharge from the service.
Mwangi, an aircraft structural repairer assigned to the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, will serve his sentence at the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
The court heard that on February 21, Mwangi and his wife were involved in an argument at their home in Killeen, Texas, which escalated into violence.
Army officials said Mwangi shot Gitau multiple times before leaving the residence with her locked inside the primary bedroom.
After the shooting, Mwangi drove away from the home and called his brother, informing him of what had happened.
The brother then alerted authorities, who later arrived at the residence and found Gitau’s body inside the house.
Military police arrested Mwangi the following day as he attempted to enter Fort Hood.
