(CNN) A Kenyan pastor stabbed his wife during a church service and then slit his throat in a murder-suicide witnessed by the shocked congregation, local police told CNN on Monday.

On Sunday, Elijah Misiko, an assistant pastor with the Ground for God's Gospel Church in Mombasa, left his front row seat and approached his wife, senior pastor Ann Mughoi, on the pulpit and stabbed her with one of the knives he'd hidden in an envelope, police said eyewitnesses told them.

"He walked up to his wife while the church was praying as if he wanted to whisper something to her," Mombasa sub-county police commander Julius Kiragu said. "Then he took one of the knives and stabbed her (wife) two times. He believed she was dead. He then stabbed himself three times in the stomach and slit his throat."

As the congregation watched, a Kenyan pastor stabbed his wife multiple times during a church service and slit his throat.

Misiko died instantly from his stab wounds and Mughoi died at a local hospital a few hours later, police said.

The couple had been engaged in a long-running feud over the ownership and leadership of the church, Kiragu told CNN.

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