A call from her boyfriend of six years on February 1 set in motion events that would send Rispher Ng’endo to her early grave.
The boyfriend, who hails from Kericho County, asked her to travel to Nairobi the same day, saying he had missed her since they last met in December during the festive season.
Elated that she would spend Valentine’s Day with the love of her life, she hurriedly bid her family goodbye.
Little did Ng’endo know that it was a trap and instead of spending the day in her lover’s embrace, she would be in a casket with family members mourning their 26-year-old daughter.
According to the family, Ng’endo received the call on Saturday at around 1pm. Without hesitation, she prepared and started her long journey at 4pm from Kirima village in Kirinyaga County, eager to meet her sweetheart.
She bid goodbye to her family, promising to return home soon.
Later, at around 8 pm, she called her younger sister, Caroline Wandia, and confirmed that she had arrived safely and that she was with her boyfriend heading to Kajiado.
On February 3, the family called Ng’endo after she failed to contact them as promised. The phone was switched off. Worry set in with the family suspecting that something was amiss but they decided to wait a little longer in the hope that their daughter’s phone would go live.
It never did. Instead, on February 4, the boyfriend called the family and joked that he and Ng’endo had flown to the US where they intended to stay for 10 months.
“Listening to him speak, I doubted and asked whether they could travel to America without passports. But he replied that he was a government officer and they don’t require passports to fly to any country,” said Ms Wandia.
Then on February 5, shocking news came knocking: they received information that Ng’endo’s decomposing body had been spotted in a house in Kajiado area where her boyfriend had been employed as a farmhand.
“We received information from Kajiado police that our daughter’s body was found inside a house and moved to City Funeral Home,” said Ms Wandia.
“My daughter’s teeth had been knocked out while her face was disfigured,” said Mr James Munene 52, the father of the deceased.
“I could not believe my daughter was dead until I saw her badly injured and lifeless body in the morgue,” said Mr Munene, adding that after that they recorded statements with the Kajiado police and went back home.
Munene narrated how the boyfriend used to visit his daughter quite often at home and he never exhibited signs of a bad character.
“The suspect would visit my daughter here in Kirinyaga and return to Kajiado where he worked. All this time he posed as a security officer in Nairobi but later we learned that he was employed as a farmhand in Kajiado,” said Mr Munene.
He said they also learned that the suspect hailed from Kericho and her slain daughter used to visit him there.
“My daughter and the suspect were good friends. They met in Nairobi in 2019 and fell in love. My daughter was working in Nairobi as a househelp. They were relating well,” said Mr Munene.
Thereafter, Ng’endo returned home and established a shop and they kept in touch. Before her death, her business was doing well, he said.
It could not immediately be established why the suspect killed Ng’endo whom the family described as a hardworking and friendly person.
“Our daughter took her work seriously. We loved her so much but sadly she was eliminated by a person very close to her. The death of our daughter will remain etched in our memories forever,” said Mr Munene.
“Police in Kajiado informed us that the suspect called and reported that he had hacked our daughter to death. After alerting the police, he fled,” said Mr Munene.
The family said they were yet to come to terms with the loss of their daughter and called on the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to get to the bottom of the matter.
“We are demanding to know why the suspect wanted our daughter dead. We also want the suspect smoked out of his hideout and prosecuted. All that we want is justice to be done,” added Mr Munene.
When contacted for a comment on Wednesday, Isinya Sub-County police boss Patrick Manyasi said the suspect had been arrested and would soon be arraigned.
"He was seized on Tuesday when he surrendered to Ruaraka Police Station. The suspect is undergoing interrogation and will face murder charges once investigations are completed," said Mr Manyasi.
The family has since embarked on burial arrangements so that they can give their departed daughter a decent send-off.
The second born in a family of four will be laid to rest on Friday 14 at her parents’ home in Kirinyaga Central Constituency.
