In The Diary of a Hitman series by Ezra Dawn, a hitman nicknamed Ever Night Dracovi takes on the dirty job of killing only after first researching his target to convince himself they deserve their fate and that they must die a painful death.
His camouflage tactics involve careful planning and execution driven by a constant fear of being caught and suffering the same fate as his victims.
That fictional portrayal may have unfortunately inspired real-life assassins and murderers for hire who have followed similar paths and often walking away scot-free.
In Gatongora, Ruiru Sub-county, Kiambu County, Edith Warui is mourning her husband Andrew Nyaga, 43, who went missing on Monday, February 2.
Nyaga, a deputy catering manager at Kenyatta University Referral Hospital, was lured from his bedroom through a phone call. His killers allegedly used mutual friends to earn his trust aware that he was a paranoid man.
At around 10am, neighbours told Daily Nation that the deceased drove out of his matrimonial home in the Kamakis area along the Eastern Bypass.
The late Andrew Nyaga. He was lured from his bedroom through a phone call.
Photo credit: Pool
Because he was walking on crutches after an earlier bar brawl that left him with fractured legs, a friend advised him to leave his car behind. He reportedly walked less than 500 metres where he was ushered into a waiting motor vehicle that sped off.
Eyewitnesses who were also his neighbours said there was no confrontation and the men appeared to know each other. They claimed they saw two men chatting with Nyaga before he was driven away.
This account was corroborated by his wife Edith, 36, who told Daily Nation that when she returned home that evening, she found Nyaga’s vehicle parked outside their house.
Their home has no CCTV camera making it difficult to identify the individuals behind the murder of the father of four.
Between February 2 and 3, Nyaga’s killers began demanding ransom. They forced their captive to text friends and family members asking for money. The funds were sent to the deceased’s mobile phone number and immediately withdrawn according to preliminary investigations by detectives from Masinga Police Station in Machakos County.
Ms Njagi told Daily Nation that her brother requested Sh150,000 urgently but never disclosed the reason.
“The message only said I should send him Sh150,000. There was no explanation even when we probed further. We believe his killers had taken control of the phone. I never sent anything because I had no money,” said Ms Njagi, 40.
To convince family members that Mr Nyaga was still alive so they could continue sending money, the killers allegedly forced him to surrender his Facebook login credentials. Between February 3 and 5, they continued demanding more money unaware that the family had already discovered his body on February 3.
“My husband was lured to his death by his friends. He was a good man who loved his family especially his children. Life will be very difficult and raising them will be even harder. I pray for justice. I will only be at peace when I know who killed him and why,” Ms Warui said in a low, strained tone during the interview.
“He looked disturbed and never spoke about what was troubling him. What I know is that he was struggling with bad debts,” she said.
Family members believe Nyaga was killed on the night of February 2 or 3. His body was found on the Kenol–Sagana Road in an area known as Kwa Samaki on February 3.
A postmortem conducted at Kenyatta University Funeral Home on Tuesday revealed that Nyaga was severely struck on the head with a blunt object and succumbed to his injuries.
The body had been dumped a few yards from a riverbank bordering Murang’a and Machakos counties. Detectives from Masinga Police Station initially handled the case before transferring the body to Murang’a Hospital Mortuary after relatives positively identified him.
Police sources at Gatongora Police Station in Ruiru where the family first reported Nyaga missing said the killers used the Nairobi Eastern Bypass to connect to Thika Road after abducting him from his Kamakis home.
They branched off at Kenol town, drove towards Mwea and later rerouted at night to the murder scene where they killed him after forcing him to request more money.
Investigators say the killers later removed the SIM card from the deceased’s phone to avoid tracking through triangulation, a method used to estimate a phone’s location by measuring its signal to multiple cell towers.
Family members said they did not initially suspect Nyaga was in danger. Because he had been struggling with debts, many assumed the repeated money requests were part of his usual financial troubles.
Nyaga’s body has since been moved to Kenyatta University Funeral Home ahead of his burial scheduled for Saturday in Kirinyaga County.
