Moses Kuloba, a cousin of Brenda Mutuka Shatuman (inset), during the interview at Nation Centre in Nairobi on August 31, 2024. Brenda's body was among those retrieved from the Kware dumpsite in Nairobi.
In Fubuye village, Kakamega County, where sugarcane stems stand aloft and maize stalks thrive, a family is waiting to give their daughter a decent burial.
To the villagers, Brenda Mutuka Shatuma, who called this village home for the better part of the 20 years she lived, was a mere child; taken from them in her prime.
Only this year did she leave Kakamega for Nairobi, having done most of her schooling in her home county.
She had spent barely three months in the city before she met her death.
The story of her tragic end will always include a tragic detail — the Kware dumpsite in Embakasi, Nairobi County.
It is there, in the reeking filth, that her body was pulled out last month. Quite fresh it was, according to what police have told her family.
It was found on July 13, police say. This was the second day of pulling out bodies from the site, as the matter of the discovery of bodies, mostly stuffed in bags, shocked the nation.
Might she have been one of the victims of a serial killer or did she die in different circumstances? No one knows for certain.
There are a lot of unknowns at the moment.
The more immediate unknown for the family is why the government is not releasing her body for burial despite being identified.
Using her fingerprints, authorities were able to obtain her details and they subsequently reached out to her father, Isaac Shatuma.
An employee of Butali Sugar, Mr Shatuma had no doubt it was the second of his six children when he viewed the body at the Nairobi Funeral Home.
“When we entered the mortuary, the only visible part was the upper body, and the head was still intact. It is the head that made me identify her because I could see the teeth and her appearance, mostly the forehead. It was clear from the face that it was her. And by the time they were calling me, they were sure because they had taken her fingerprints and it brought up information about her,” the father told Nation.
After the identification, both Mr Shatuma and his wife recorded statements with the DCI. With all that, they wonder why the government is not handing over the body to them.
“I don’t know why they are holding onto the body,” said Mr Shatuma.
He noted that Brenda’s death has made family members halt their schedules as they mourn her. A burial, he said, is necessary for them to move on. He took leave from his workplace and he fears the leave might end before Brenda is laid to rest.
“To make the matter worse, she has a sister who is a Form Four candidate this year. She is supposed to be in school. Then there is a brother in Grade Eight who is also supposed to be in school. (Her death) has brought everything in the family to a halt, and there is nothing I can think of now because of this tragedy,” said Mr Shatuma.
“They identified the body, and that’s why they called me. I don’t see why they should hold on to the body, saying they are waiting for all the other bodies to be identified before they can release this one. The only thing I want is for them to give me the body. If compensation is in the cards, it can happen later, but for now I want the body to bury,” he added.
Some Facebook tributes for Brenda (she called herself Brenda Breshy on the social network) are pointing fingers or mentioning Collins Jumaisi, the suspect behind the Kware murders who is at large after escaping from custody, but the family has no idea if she knew him.
According to Mr Moses Kuloba, Brenda’s cousin, no one is aware of any connection between Brenda and the suspect.
Mr Kuloba said Brenda came to Nairobi to work as a house help after completing her studies at the Shamberere National Polytechnic in May. She was working in Nairobi’s Donholm and was looking for another job after her first engagement ended.
“She went missing when she left that job,” said Mr Kuloba, adding that Brenda went missing on July 10.
On that day, Brenda’s father remembers, she asked for some money from him in a phone conversation.
“The last communication I made with her was on the evening of July 10. She asked for money, and I sent her Sh2,500. It was on that very evening that she went missing,” said Mr Shatuma.
Not sure if she had been caught up in the crossfire that was anti-government protests or something else, her relatives in Nairobi reported to the police.
Then the call to her father happened. It was in mid-August.
“I was called while at home. The caller identified themselves and said they were following up on the Kware cases and said they had information that there was a missing girl called Brenda,” Mr Shatuma noted. “They ran a search for the fingerprints and it brought up her name and where she comes from. That is how they traced me as the father and called me.”
Mr Shatuma received the call on August 16 and went to the morgue to view the body on August 22.
There is still uncertainty regarding the wholeness of Brenda’s body. Was it only the torso that belonged to her? The father said a sample was taken from Brenda’s mother for DNA testing, and that DNA tests will also establish whether the lower and the upper parts of the body belong to the same person.
“When we went there, it was only the upper part that I was shown. It was a hurried thing, and they told me they just wanted me to confirm that it was her,” said Mr Shatuma.
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The father and cousin remember Brenda as a woman who was straightforward.
“She was just humble and respectful. She would speak up after thinking about something deeply. She wouldn’t just speak. And she had never lied to me to get money from me, the way children lie to their parents,” said the father.
The cousin added: “She was a cool person, without many issues. She wasn’t loud but couldn’t fail to point out something wrong; she’d correct you. She was also a God-fearing person. She used to go to church, and she was a Seventh-Day Adventist.”
When reached by the Nation, the National Police Service Spokesperson Dr Resila Onyango said the team was working hard to finalise the process, before releasing the bodies to the families for burial.
"DCI Homicide Unit has been collaborating and working with the Government Chemist to conclude the DNA analysis process, and once the DCI receives the Government Pathologist's report, the body will be released to the family soonest," Dr Onyango told Nation on text.
It is maize harvesting season in Fubuye village in Malava sub-county and as locals get the result of months of backbreaking work, drying it and storing it for their staple, Brenda is on everyone’s lips. They have raised funds towards her burial, have been gathering at the family home and talking about the brutal deeath of their own. All they want is the body and a decent burial.
