Investigators looking for the killers of National Lands Communications (NLC) director Jennifer Wambua are having a hard time recreating her last moments even as it emerged that she was murdered less than 24 hours after going missing.
This is as more information about her chilling murder continued to trickle in yesterday, including the fact that she may have been raped before being strangled and her body dumped in a thicket.
A team of senior scene-of-crime detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) yesterday visited a field at Kerarapon in Ngong, Kajiado County, where Wambua’s body was found.
They spent more than three hours there trying to recreate how Wambua’s body ended up behind a thicket on Saturday morning.
They also collected pieces of forensic evidence they could find that they thought could help them crack the case.
But even as the forensic experts did their work, the fact that they were doing it more than three days after the victim’s body was found is already raising questions on how effective the investigation will be.
At the City Mortuary, a post-mortem examination that was scheduled to take place yesterday aborted due to unknown reasons but detectives assured that it will happen today.
Nation has established that Wambua’s body was found half naked , with only a black floral blouse on. She had no shoes, skirt or trouser and on her neck was a black piece of cloth tied around tightly.
Detectives are so far treating this piece of cloth as the murder weapon. An initial analysis of the body shows that it had no visible injuries serious enough to cause death. The victim however had some blood caused by bruising on her neck.
The thicket where Wambua’s body was found is roughly 100 metres from a rough road that cuts through a vast field belonging to the government.
The thicket is on the way to the top of a small hill but it can be seen from the road during the day as the place is not very isolated. There is a row of houses on the opposite end of the hill about 50 metres from where the body was found.
A police training college is also coming up in the location and lorries occasionally use the road on their way to a ballast quarry a stone’s throw away. And when you consider that herders usually graze on this field, dumping a human body during the day at this location is an uphill task.
Nevertheless, residents say stumbling on human bodies is not a rare thing.
“The area is generally safe but we have over the years had bodies of people killed elsewhere being dumped here. I have personally witnessed this about five times,” said Maria Kariuki, a Nyumba Kumi representative in the area.
On discovery of the body, the residents called the area chief who immediately informed officers at Kerarapon Police Station. And, since the body did not have any identification documents, it was transported to the City Mortuary and booked as an unknown person under admission number 502/2.
Wambua’s husband Joseph Komu, who found her personal details in their family car parked at Hill Plaza near the Milimani Law Courts, reported his wife’s disappearance on Sunday at the Capitol Hill Police Post.
The report was recorded under OB number 14/13/3/2021, a day after Wambua’s body was found. In such murders, the first thing that detectives do is try to establish the victims last movements and whether they were facing any active threat on their lives.
So far, the police are hopping to establish whether there was a threat on Wambua’s life in order to crack open the case.
She was supposed to be cross examined in a Sh122 million corruption case, where she is a star witness, yesterday morning.
The suit at the Milimani High Court in Nairobi involves theft of Sh122 million from the Government Advertising Agency (GAA).
The accused include former GAA boss Dennis Chebitweyi, former Broadcasting Principal Secretary Sammy Itemere, Lugari MP Ayub Savula, his two wives Gatwiri Ringera and Hellen Kemboi, and 18 others.
Detectives are trying to establish whether there is a link between this case and Wambua’s murder. The have also widened the probe to see if she may have been killed because of a deal that went sour or if she was involved in any feud over property or family wrangles.
