As neighbours worked their way through the rubble after a house fire, they discovered a body hidden under the bedding.
Ruth Waithera was at work on December 2, 2021 when she received a distress call from her neighbour.
Her house in Nakuru's Kagoto Estate was on fire.
In a panic, she jumped on a motorcycle and raced home to find her neighbours desperately trying to put out the raging flames that had already engulfed her two-bedroom house.
But amid the chaos, she realised that her 20-year-old house help, Beatrice Akinyi, was missing.
After a frantic search, neighbours advised her to report the matter to Kagoto Police Station and officers escorted her back home. By then, the fire had been extinguished, but the house was badly damaged.
There was no sign of Akinyi, and exhausted from the ordeal, Waithera spent the night at a neighbour's house, planning to return the next day to assess the situation.
The next day, she gathered a few men to help clear the charred remains of her house and search for anything salvageable.
As they worked their way through the rubble, one of the men suddenly recoiled after stepping on something under the bedding in the children's bedroom.
What they first thought was rubble turned out to be something far more horrifying.
On closer inspection, they made the gruesome discovery that it was Akinyi's body. She had not been burned, but he swollen body was hidden under the bedding.
“We were removing the burned items when one of the young men said he had stepped on something. When we lifted the beddings, we found her body,” Waithera testified in court on Tuesday in a case in which five men have been charged with killing women in Nakuru’s Mawanga estate.
The court heard that Akinyi had joined Waithera’s household just three months before the incident.
Having recently completed her secondary schooling, she had taken up the job as a house help to save money for her college education. She had quickly become part of the family, making her tragic death all the more devastating.
Upon discovering the body, neighbours immediately called the police, who arrived and took Akinyi’s body to the Nakuru Sub-county Mortuary for a post-mortem.
Waithera later identified the body during the examination on December 5, 2021.
“Her whole body was swollen but there were no visible injuries,” she told Justice Hedwig Ong'udi.
For many months, Akinyi’s murder remained a mystery, but in July 2022, investigators made a breakthrough when they recovered her mobile phone from Evans Kebwaro, a notorious member of Nakuru’s feared Confirm gang.
Waithera was summoned to Kingoini Police Station on the same date to identify some items that had been recovered, including Akinyi’s mobile phone.
There she learned that Kebwaro had been arrested while hiding in Kisii after carrying out a series of murders and violent robberies in Mawanga, Bahati.
The gang had gained notoriety for its brutal crimes, targeting homes, stealing valuables, raping and murdering women, and then setting the houses ablaze to cover their tracks.
Kebwaro's arrest led to the capture of five of his accomplices – Kevin Omondi, Josphat Simiyu, Julius Otieno, Dennis Alusiola and Isaac Kinyanjui.
The suspects were jointly charged with the murders of four women – Akinyi, Diana Opicho, Susan Wambui and Grace Wanjiku.
As the case progressed, Kebwaro opted for a plea bargain with the prosecution.
In exchange for pleading guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, he agreed to testify as a prosecution witness against his co-accused.
He told the court how the gang operated, revealing chilling details of how they entered homes, terrorised the occupants and eliminated their victims.
His confession helped strengthen the prosecution's case against his accomplices.
He is currently serving time after the court sentenced him to 12, 28, 10 and 12 years' imprisonment respectively.
The hearing will continue on May 21.
