The murder of a US-based Kenyan man and his wife in Nyamira County this week has rekindled the unresolved death of Prof Zachary Mosoti, 59, a university don, who was in 2021 found murdered inside a rented bedsitter where he had settled with a mistress who he was planning to marry as his third wife.
This week, the bodies of Edward Morema Nyagechi, 62 and Mong’ina Morema, 60, were discovered on Tuesday morning in their house following a brutal murder by unknown individuals.
To start with, Mr Morema, was the uncle of Prof Mosoti who taught Management and Human Resource Development at the United States International University (USIU) and who was in December 2021 found dead while half naked inside a bedsitter in Kamulu area.
Nathan Oburu, an advocate, shows where Prof Mosoti’s body was found in a bedsitter in Kipawa area, Kamulu.
Photo credit: Jeff Angote | Nation Media Group
His mistress identified as Naomy Morang’a who co-habited with the professor before his death, disappeared after the incident and has never been found to date.
Her relatives, based in Igare, Bobasi Sub-County in Kisii County, in an exclusive interview with the Nation.Africa a year ago, revealed that they had lost hope in trying to trace her.
It is worth noting that Ms Morang’a disappeared with some secrets and her friends who spoke to Nation.Africa’s investigations desk then, said that the don had informed her that his second wife was mistreating him.
Ms Morang’a had also told her friends that she was not planning to go back to Saudi Arabia because the don had promised to build her a home in Ruai and also take her to college.
A postmortem conducted at the Kenyatta University Teaching and Referral Hospital (KUTRH) revealed that the professor was strangled to death contrary to a police report filed at Kamulu Police Station which indicated his cause of death as natural.
“As a result of my examination, I formed the opinion that the cause of death was asphyxia due to neck compression,” the post-mortem findings recorded by Dr Dorothy Njeru read.
A house in Acacia area, Ruai, that belonged to Prof Zachary Mumbo Mosoti.
Photo credit: Jeff Angote | Nation Media Group
The killers of the don had played a mind game on anyone who would have wanted to investigate the case as they left him half naked and beside him were five blue tablets, an insulin pen and a carrier bag containing a woman’s bra and underwear. A red herring.
Nation.Africa has established that sleuths attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) who were following up on the matter had already said that they were focusing on his marital woes as the main reason which might have led to his death.
Marital woes for the late Prof Mosoti started in 2017 when he introduced Ms Peris Ondara to his first wife Gladys Mosoti and said that she would be his second wife.
This did not augur well with Gladys who moved out of the home when the Professor insisted that he would live with both of them in the same compound. They had been married since 1995.
With Gladys out of the way, Ms Ondara took over. However, things were not all rosy with his new bride forcing the Professor to embark on a new mission of getting another wife.
That is how the don met Ms Morang’a on Facebook, the mistress he lived with in a bedsitter.
The two started chatting when Ms Morang’a was still working in Saudi Arabia and the don picked her up when she jetted into the country on December 3, 2021.
Just like the murders of Prof Mosoti who never left a trace giving detectives a hard time unravelling what transpired, police in Masaba North Sub-County in Nyamira County are also saying that those who on Tuesday, March 21, 2023, ended the lives of the couple did not leave a trace.
A close family member who spoke in confidence due to the sensitivity of the matter said that the late Prof Mosoti and Mr Morema had bought some land in Ruai.
“We suspect that it might have been a contributor in what transpired because for a while now it was the topic of discussion amongst close family members,” said the family member.
Relatives of Zachary Mumbo Mosoti mourn his death.
Photo credit: Jeff Angote | Nation Media Group
On the other hand, police in Nyamira are now trying to piece together the last moments of the couple who were killed inside their mansion which has now been labelled as a crime scene.
Already, two people including a house girl and a farm hand have been grilled over the brutal death of the couple and recorded statements with the police.
In their narrative to the police, the duo said that on the night Mr Morema and Ms Mong’ina died, there was a stranger who had visited them.
The couple had dinner alongside the visitor as they held discussions and the house girl excused herself and went to sleep, leaving behind the couple and their guest.
For the farm hand, he said that he rarely enters the house and when he was served supper, he ate, closed the gate and retired to bed after a busy day on the farm.
Masaba North Sub-County Police boss Robert Ndambiri in an earlier interview said that investigations into the matter had started.
According to Mr Ndambiri, the deceased persons seemed to have been hit with a blunt object on their heads.
“We are trying to establish how the attackers got into their house because there was no breakage. We have arrested two people as we commence our investigations. They are a housemaid who used to live with the deceased in their single-storey house and a farm hand,” Mr Ndambiri told Nation. Africa on the phone.
