The last time Ms Florence Wanjiku saw her daughter, aged three and half years, was on February 9, 2025, at 4pm, before she was found defiled, murdered, and dumped in a public dam in Maragua town.
"I am devastated...I don't know whether I will ever be the same again. I feel like I want to drop dead," the distraught mother told the Nation on Tuesday.
Ms Wanjiku said her daughter, Elizabeth Wamaitha, was a pupil at Hope and Victory Academy situated in Maragua town, where she was in PP1.
"I was washing dishes in my room at Mjini estate, and my daughter was seated in the verandah of the house. It was only about five minutes since I had checked on her before I found her gone," she said.
Florence Wanjiku displays a picture of her three and half years old daughter, Elizabeth Wamaitha, whose body was found dumped in a dam in Maragua town.
Photo credit: Courtesy
"You know, my mother lives in a neighbouring estate, and she sometimes would pass near my house unannounced and take my daughter with her. My daughter is named after her," she said.
The grandmother and her granddaughter, she said, would go together for hours and sometimes spend the night together and come back to her house early the following morning.
"My mother does not have a phone...Being a Sunday, I was concerned that she had not brought the girl back ahead of Monday's school date," she said.
Ms Wanjiku said she went to her mother's house, and to her shock, her daughter was not there.
"I felt a knot build in my tummy as though suffering from acute constipation. I felt dizzy...I felt my knees get weak and sat down on the hard floor, too confused to think," she said.
It was her mother's neighbours who advised her to go and make a report to Maragua Police Station as her mum and others commenced an immediate search for the missing girl.
At the police station, Ms Wanjiku had not even had her missing daughter's details recorded when a phone call came through from a resident announcing that the body of a little girl had been found in a public mini dam.
"The officers told me to accompany them to go and have a look. There she was...my daughter with her face facing downwards in the water. Half-naked with her tender legs wide apart...I hardly saw her get pulled out of the water," she said.
Ms Wanjiku narrates that the last image she saw in a dizzy stupor was that of her daughter hauled up to the banks of the dam, her hands thrust up as though telling the world goodbye.
"I passed out. When I woke up, I was at Murang'a Level Five Hospital. I recollected the events...amassed willpower to ask that I see my daughter one more time," she said.
At the hospital's mortuary, she said she kissed the forehead of her dead daughter, pulled together her legs, and straightened her tiny hands.
"I then saw her prepared and put in the cold freezers. My only daughter who has left behind her only elder brother...I can forgive everything under the sun but not that person or persons who so cruelly murdered my daughter," she said.
Murang'a South Deputy County Commissioner Gitonga Murungi told Nation.Africa that "I am lost for words. I don't know how to console the mother, but I can assure you that we will apply all tricks in the books of law to get at the perpetrator(s) of this cruelty".
He said the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has since taken over investigations and is pursuing several leads.
"We are pursuing several leads. We are also anticipating the autopsy report to offer us a clear picture of how she died. We are also relying on neighbourhood goodwill to tip us on who took her away at around 4pm," he said.
Maragua Assistant County Commissioner Joshua Okello lamented that "we have not had an incident of murder that targets a child in this area...I am taking this incident seriously".
Mr Okello said he has instructed all government machinery under his command to have their ears on the ground to tap any clue that might lead to the arrest of the suspect(s).
"We are waiting for the deceased's mother to get her thoughts together before we invite her for interrogation to shed light on possible grudges that could have resulted in the murder of her child," he said.
Maragua MP Mary wa Maua condemned the murder, urging area security to "for this once give us the suspect(s)."
Ms Wa Maua lamented that "we have suffered many murders that never get resolved in this constituency, and that makes the government look bad in the public eye."
Murang'a Governor Irungu Kang'ata expressed his distaste for the murder, urging security officers to expedite investigations and charge anyone who played a part in the girl's death.
"My government will waive mortuary bills that include postmortem expenses. My government shares the grief," he said.
