Winnie Akusuha with her estranged husband Hanice Simani Juma. Right: Lydia Tokesi went missing and was later found dead in Ongata Rongai.
One man is in custody. Another on the run. The third dead, after taking his own life.
The aftermath of three murders, all the aftermath of love gone sour, leaving the families of three women grieving, and homicide detectives trying to build cases against the prime suspects.
Investigations into the three murders continue as a 34-member taskforce established by President William Ruto, and led by former Deputy Chief Justice Nancy Baraza, starts its job of fighting against gender violence, including femicide.
Lydia Tokesi, a 29-year-old Moi University graduate left her parents’ home in Dagoretti on the night of January 4, 2025, to visit her boyfriend in Ongata Rongai.
Head over heels, Lydia last year took a bank loan to buy her boyfriend a car, which he enlisted with digital taxi-hailing apps to eke out a living. She saw a future in the relationship, which seemed to have been going strong for eight years.
She spent the night at her boyfriend’s house making merry, at least by accounts given to police by neighbours, and evidence found at the scene of her gruesome murder.
The following day, January 5, everything appeared normal in the neighbourhood.
Unlike the previous night when neighbours could hear the music blasting from the house where Lydia was, it was unusually quiet.
Back at the family home in Dagoretti, Lydia's family was desperately trying to reach her on the phone.
After several failed attempts, the family reported their daughter missing at the Dagoretti Police Station.
The family and the police started the search party for the missing woman, as her relatives sent a public appeal for information on social media.
On the morning of January 12, seven days after Lydia was last seen, police in Dagoretti were informed of a body that had been found in Gataka Forest in Ongata Rongai.
The officers reached out to the family of Lydia as the description of the body found at the forest matched that of their missing daughter.
Detectives from the Nairobi Area Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau, together with homicide investigators, were called in to help when it emerged that the kind of investigation ahead was a gruesome murder that required specialised investigators.
After a forensic investigation of Lydia’s mobile phone, the detectives were led to the flat where Lydia and the boyfriend, who is now on the run, were last seen on the night of January 4.
At this house, the investigators found crucial evidence that has now pointed the DCI to the possible killers of Lydia.
Inside this house was a bottle of whisky that Lydia and the boyfriend are said to have drunk on the night of January 4.
Clothes and shoes believed to be Lydia's were also found inside the house, further giving more clues into the murder.
Crime scene investigators also recovered a note that revealed that Lydia and the missing owner of this house were in a romantic relationship, but which had hit the wall.
Crime scene personnel who visited the scene where Lydia’s body was found on January 12 noted that the body was partly decomposed.
The investigations revealed more shocking details that were not known to the family. Before her death, Lydia secured a loan from a microfinance bank in Nairobi, which she used to buy a taxi.
The man, the prime suspect in the murder, was the person who operated this car. Barely a week after Lydia’s murder, police were alerted of another incident, also tracing back to Rongai.
Nancy Bonke Chacha, a 23-year-old who lived and worked in Rongai, was also murdered in what police believe is another crime of passion.
Her lifeless body was found at Langata Cemetery last Friday by a security guard who was walking home after working a night shift.
Blood-stained knife
Nancy was in between jobs, but got by working as a part-time housekeeper. The security guard who spotted her body alerted police, after seeing a blood-stained knife in the vicinity. A mobile phone believed to be Nancy’s was also at the scene.
Police did not find any identification documents, and resorted to fingerprint analysis of both the victim and the blood-stained knife.
On Monday, detectives managed to establish the identity of the killed woman after fingerprint experts handed in their results.
Detectives from the DCI homicide unit and the Nairobi Area Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau have again been called in to assist with this mystery murder.
On Monday, DCI investigators from Langata arrested a man said to be the boyfriend of the murdered woman.
The suspect, who lives in the same neighbourhood as Nancy, told the investigators that the two last spoke three days before her body was found.
An official familiar with the probe told the Nation that the suspect said in his statement that he differed with Nancy and that they had not seen each other for days before she died.
Forensic investigations of Nancy’s phone revealed that the man in custody was among the last people to have spoken to the woman before her mysterious death.
These incidents follow another in which a 32-year-old man travelled from Nairobi to Nandi County, and stabbed his estranged wife to death before taking his own life.
In what has emerged to be a planned murder-suicide, complete with a written plan, Hanice Simani Juma on January 13, allegedly travelled to Kibwareng village in search of his estranged wife Winnie Akusuha.
The couple had been living together in Nairobi until early this year when they parted ways. The 30-year-old woman decided to relocate to her rural home while, the man remained in the city.
A police report on the incident revealed that on the fateful night, the man, who had taken time to plan the murder, arrived at the house just before 7 pm.
Winnie’s parents, who were also neighbours, heard a scream and ran into their daughter’s house. They found Winnie’s body in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor.
Winnie had suffered multiple knife stab wounds. The parents called for help and rushed their daughter to the nearby Jumuia Hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival. She had succumbed to the knife wounds.
While at the health facility, the husband of the dead woman was brought into the hospital where he too was pronounced dead moments later. He is said to have died by suicide by ingesting five packets of rat poison and slitting his neck with a knife.
Detectives from Chepatulu Police Station, who visited the scene, recovered a written note from the man’s house. These notes, which the police are treating as a suicide note, bore the man’s murder plan.
In this letter, he had outlined how he would travel to his estranged wife's home attack her and also end his life.
kamaina@ke.nationmedia.com
