The body of a 28-year-old Kirinyaga woman, who was on Tuesday night (June 23) killed by her boyfriend, has been exhumed.
The deceased has been identified as Mary Wanjiku, overruling
earlier speculations that she was a Tanzanian national. Her family says she
worked as a casual labourer in Kagio Town, Kirinyaga County.
Wanjiku was attacked using crude weapons, set ablaze and buried
in a shallow grave by her alleged boyfriend Murimi Wanjobi, 35, who is at
large. The incident happened at Kiieni Village in Kirinyaga Central.
On Friday morning (June 26), police obtained a court order Okaying
the exhumation of her body.
The one-hour exercise led by Kirinyaga Central Sub-County
Commissioner Daniel Ndege, area OCPD Doreen Oduor, and medical officers from
Kerugoya County Referral Hospital, yielded shocking discoveries: Wanjiku’s body
had been cut into pieces, her stomach ripped and her intestines removed.
Police said the vicenarian “died a painful death”.
“She was set alight while naked,” said Oduor, revealing that the
suspect wrapped the victim in a car tyre before striking a matchstick.
According to Commissioner Ndege, after the exhumation, the woman’s
family positively identified her as Mary Wanjiku.
As early as 6am Friday, tens of residents had flocked to the
grave, where Murimi had buried Wanjiku, to witness the exhumation exercise.
Wanjiku’s mother, Beatrice Kabari Mugo, collapsed when she
discovered it was her daughter who had been brutally killed. Mugo was taken to
hospital.
Police suspect that the suspect, Murimi, could be a serial
killer, who has murdered several women in the past.
Neighbours claimed several women in the locality have, in the
recent past, disappeared mysteriously, with some of them never to be found
again. They are now suspecting Murimi could be behind the mysterious disappearances
and deaths of youthful women in the area.
“We would investigate allegations that several women from Kirinyaga
Central went missing in unexplained circumstances, only for some of them to be
discovered dead,” said Commissioner Ndege.
Several neighbours, who spoke to K24 Digital, painted the picture of a quiet Murimi, “who was shy
around women”.
“We are dealing with a suspect who, before the eyes of
right-thing members of the society, was innocent and harmless. Behind the
closed doors, it seems he was a blood-thirsty killer who targeted women,” said
Ndege.
Wanjiku’s body was taken to Kerugoya County Referral Hospital
morgue awaiting postmortem.
Murimi, a landscape designer, arrived at his Kirinyaga home on
Tuesday evening in the company of Wanjiku, who neighbours were unfamiliar with
at the time. They, actually, speculated that Wanjiku was a Tanzanian national.
On Wednesday, June 24, the neighbours saw him digging what
looked like a grave in his compound. On being asked, Murimi said he was digging
a pit to put up a toilet.
Kirinyaga Central Sub-County Police Commander, Doreen Oduor,
told K24 Digital that the suspect
killed his lover in his two-bedroom house “following a relationship conflict”.
“He, thereafter, set her body on fire and buried the 28-year-old
woman in the grave he had dug earlier Wednesday,” said Oduor.
The area police boss said Murimi covered his girlfriend’s body
in pieces of clothes and wrapped it around a car tyre, which he set alight.
Blood stains were also spotted in the suspect’s bedroom, with
authorities suspecting the blood could have spattered when Murimi was attacking
his partner with crude weapons.
Neighbours painted a picture of a level-headed and well-behaved
Murimi, saying they were shocked to be told that he had killed someone.
Murimi’s father, Wanjobi Gachoki, told police that at 7pm
Wednesday, he heard pop sounds emanating from his son’s compound.
“When I went to establish the cause of the pop sounds, I saw
pieces of clothes and a car tyre burning. I assumed my son was getting rid of
waste,” he said, adding: “As a result, I did not go closer to see the contents
covered in the pieces of clothes and tyre.”
On Thursday morning, Gachoki said he saw the pit that his son
had dug on Wednesday had been filled.
“Suspecting that something was wrong, I went and dug out
sections of the covered pit. I was shocked to see a human leg in the shallow grave.
Confused, I rushed to the Kirinyaga Central Police Station, where I reported
the incident,” he said.
Police, who arrived at the scene, threw a cordon around the
suspect’s compound, while waiting for a court order to okay the exhumation of
the contents of the grave.
After obtaining the court order, police on Friday morning (June
26) exhumed the grave and removed the charred remains of a female human being.
“After committing the crime, the suspect escaped to an unknown
destination. The last time we traced his phone signal, it was located in
Wanguru Town in Mwea. However, he has since switched off his mobile device,”
said OCPD Doreen Oduor, adding: “Nonetheless, we are committed to arresting and
prosecuting him.”
The suspect’s father, Wanjobi Gachoki, said his 35-year-old son
had never introduced any woman to them as his fiancée.
“We do not know the identity of the deceased. I only heard from
my son’s neighbours that the woman is a Tanzanian national. How she travelled
from Tanzania to Kirinyaga, Kenya remains a mystery,” said Gachoki.
Nancy Wanjira, who is the suspect’s neighbour and former schoolmate, described the suspect as a “quiet person, who was shy around girls”.
“I hardly saw him in the company of ladies. Very few, if not
none of the neighbours, knew he had a girlfriend. We are shocked to hear he
killed his said-lover,” said Wanjira.
