Saturday, 05 February 2022 – A family’s hopes of reuniting with their daughter who went missing in Nyahururu, close to two months ago, were dashed after her remains were found yesterday.
This is after detectives discovered her decomposing body, in an abandoned well in Igwamiti location, in Nyahururu Laikipia County.
Miriam Wanjiru, who was a teacher at St Louis Secondary school in the same town, went missing on December 19, 2021, leaving her one-year-old infant under the care of her house help.
After three days, the worried nanny who had become weary from nursing and soothing the restless baby walked to Losogwa police station and filed a missing person’s report.
The baby had changed from the little calm angel that the nanny knew, with every passing minute of her mother’s absence.
Detectives based at Nyahururu immediately swung into action and began investigations into the teacher’s disappearance.
In the course of their investigations, they discovered that Wanjiru had separated with her husband, one Peter Kanyi, after irreconcilable differences.
On the day of her disappearance, Wanjiru’s estranged husband had called her sounding sickly and frail, asking her to go save him from the verge of death after taking poison.
The deceased who didn’t know that she was being lured to a death trap, rushed to save the father of her little angel, never to be seen again.
In a bid to expedite the investigations and bring the suspect to book, detectives from the elite Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau (CRIB), joined in the investigations two days ago.
Using cyber forensic analysis of digital data that was processed at the DCI National Forensic laboratory, the main suspect into the murder Anthony Mutahi, 29, was arrested yesterday.
After intensive grilling, the suspect led the sleuths to a 90-metres-deep water well, where he had disposed of the deceased’s body.
The detectives retrieved the body that had its head missing.
Upon further scrutiny of the well, a second body of an unidentified teenage girl that was badly decomposed was found. Scenes of Crime experts have since extracted samples from the body for DNA profiling.
The sleuths have also established that following the couple’s separation, the deceased had sold a matatu that belonged to her and which her estranged husband used to operate rendering him jobless.
Further investigations also revealed that the main suspect had withdrawn Sh120,000 from the deceased’s Equity bank account in Nyahururu town, using her ATM card.
The deceased’s estranged husband Peter Kanyi, has also been arrested and together with his accomplice will face murder charges, contrary to section 203 as read with section 204 of the Penal Code.
Meanwhile, the deceased’s little angel is under the care and protection of the local Children’s officer, who is working closely with DCI’s Anti Human Trafficking and Child Protection detectives, to ensure that the infant is well taken care of.