Susan Wanjiru realised her daughter was missing around 7 pm on Saturday, May 24. By then, the man believed to have killed her—Nicholas Macharia—had already asked her twice about the girl’s whereabouts.
Two days later, Tamara Blessing’s body was discovered buried beneath a bed inside a timbered house in Witemere slums—the home of a man the family had long trusted as a friend.
“I raised my daughter at the market. She always called him ‘uncle.’ We gave him odd jobs now and then. I never imagined he could do this,” says Susan.
Fondly known as ‘Macha,’ Macharia worked as a porter at the Nyeri Town market, where Susan earns a living as a trader.
Susan recalls last seeing her seven-year-old daughter that Saturday at around 2pm after they had returned from the salon.
“She had her lunch, then I told her to go play with her friends around the market as she normally does while I finished up for the day,” Susan recounts.
But four hours later, Tamara had not returned to her mother’s stall.
At first, Susan assumed she had gone to stay with her grandmother, also a trader at the market. A quick search among friends and family near the area yielded nothing.
“We thought that maybe she was still hiding during a game of hide-and-seek with her friends,” says Susan. She reported the matter to the police the following morning.
Tamara Blessing, a seven-year-old girl who had been missing from Nyeri town for four days, was found murdered.
Photo credit: Pool | Nation
Witness accounts placed Tamara last seen around 6pm on Saturday, playing with a friend near the Nyeri police residence, just 200 metres from the market.
The search continued overnight and into Sunday. Throughout that time, Nicholas occasionally approached the family, asking how the search was going.
On Monday morning, police detained and later released Tamara’s biological father and her stepfather, who were initially considered suspects.
Meanwhile, Susan says she encountered Nicholas twice as she was putting up missing-child posters in town.
“He asked how the search was progressing and wanted to know whether he could help with the posters,” she says.
Nicholas had reported to work as usual that morning, but as he packed market goods destined for Nairobi—a trip he was set to join—police arrested him and questioned him about Tamara.
A tea hawker, who operates near the market, had seen one of the posters and recalled seeing Tamara with Nicholas on Saturday evening.
CCTV footage from a wholesale shop near the market confirmed that between 7pm and 8pm that day, Tamara was walking closely behind Nicholas.
Nyeri residents demand justice after murder of seven-year-old girl
Another camera, located about a quarter kilometre away in a town business building, captured them walking together toward the Witemere slums in Majengo.
“The hawker was sure it was Nicholas. She even greeted him, and he responded,” says Susan.
“It wasn’t unusual to see him with children. Our kids loved him. He would often let them play with his phone while waiting at his station,” says Susan.
Upon his arrest, Nicholas led police to one of his timbered houses in Witemere, for them to confirm that the missing child was not in his house.
Locals say he lived alone and owned several structures in the area. Several of them had to be demolished before reaching the one where Tamara had been buried.
Inside, police found utensils and a bed. Beneath the bed were a spade, machete, and hoe—all with freshly disturbed soil.
A police affidavit later presented in court on Monday evening seeking for exhumation orders, revealed that Nicholas initially claimed he had been uprooting roots from beneath the bed.
Detective Wamburi Njogu, in his affidavit, requested the court to authorise police to secure the suspect’s home and to issue orders for the preservation of the minor’s body at the Nyeri County Referral Hospital mortuary.
Crowds that had gathered at the scene grew impatient with the police’s pace and clashed with officers who insisted they needed a court order for exhumation.
Locals eventually took over the scene and retrieved the body themselves, forcing police to rush Nicholas to Nyeri Central Police Station for his safety.
Tamara’s body was found buried standing upright. Her maroon trousers were worn inside out, and white pus was oozing from her nose. Her family believes she may have been raped before being killed.
Later that day, Senior Principal Magistrate Faith Munyi ruled that the police’s exhumation application was improperly filed.
“I direct that the OCS Nyeri Police Station provide security at the crime scene until tomorrow. In the meantime, the application must be properly filed and placed before me on May 27 for appropriate orders,” she said.
But by the time the orders were issued, angry residents had carried Tamara’s body to the police station gates in protest.
A relative claimed that during interrogation, Nicholas confessed to being paid to commit the crime—though police have yet to verify this claim.
On Tuesday, May 27, Senior Principal Magistrate Faith Munyi granted police permission to detain the suspect for 14 more days as investigations continue.
In an affidavit presented in court, Njogu requested that the suspect remain in custody at the Nyeri Central Police Station.
He told the court that more time was needed to conduct a postmortem on the child to determine the exact cause of death.
“The investigating officer also requires time to subject the suspect to a mental assessment, carry out further interrogation, and establish whether he had any accomplices in the crime,” the affidavit stated.
