Murdered graduate Seth Njeri, 23.
In the afternoon of October 12, 2024, Seth Nyakio, 23, left her mother's house in Kamakis estate, Kiambu, to visit a friend in Thika town.
Her mother, Lucy Njeri, a nominated Member of the County Assembly (MCA) in Kirinyaga County, told Nation.Africa that her only daughter was in high spirits and had promised to be back home soon.
"Had I known that this was the last time she was to be with me alive, I would have dissuaded her not to go. But no instinct warned me that my beloved daughter was heading to a painful death," she said.
Ms Njeri expressed her devastation by the cruel death her daughter suffered and the slow investigations by the Kiambu County sleuths.
“She had just graduated from a tertiary college in Thika town and was job hunting. But she had some friends in Thika town she occasionally visited," the distraught mother said.
Ms Njeri added that on that fateful day, her daughter said she would visit a friend in Thika's Biafra estate but would keep in touch should the need arise for her to spend the night away. "I and her were close and we kept nothing from each other".
Kirinyaga Nominated MCA Ms Lucy Njeri (right) with her daughter Seth Nyakio (now deceased).
She gave her some pocket money and bid her goodbye.
"We spoke some minutes past 9 pm when she informed me she was safe. We spoke again severally on Sunday morning before she became unreachable when I tried calling her in the evening," Ms Maina said.
Silence then tragedy
She revealed that alarm bells struck her at around 10 pm on October 13 "since it was unusual for her to be unreachable on phone that long and even short messages as well as on WhatsApp remained unresponded to”.
The disturbed mother woke up early Monday morning determined to travel to Thika town to try and trace her daughter.
The late Seth Nyakio Njeri, 23, who was discovered murdered in Thika town on October 14, 2024.
"But I received a call from a female voice before I had left the house. The caller introduced herself as Nyakio's friend. The message was blunt: Your daughter has been found dead," she recalled the devastating message.
She said the world started swirling and whirling around her.
"How I later found myself in Thika town remains indescribable since I just found myself there together with a friend," Ms Maina said.
Found naked and dead
By the directions given on the phone call, Ms Maina said they found themselves in a rented room in Biafra Estate of Thika West sub-County.
"There she was...my daughter was inside a rental room...naked, with blood stains on her private parts and with signs of strangulation...I looked at her...called out her name...she did not respond,” she painfully narrated.
She added that reality slowly sunk in.
“The world caved in from beneath my feet, I screamed as I collapsed in a heap, passing out," she recalled.
Her phone calls to friends and relatives as she travelled to the scene had been responded to and she had a crowd around her.
"In the meantime, police had been alerted and came over. They processed the scene and asked some questions around. Then they took my daughter's body to nearby General Kago mortuary," she said.
As she plans to bury her daughter, Ms Maina said: "I feel disappointed that the police have been treating this case casually".
She eulogised her daughter as "my only fruit of my womb whose birth marked a memorable and an indelible mark in my life".
"I felt so whole when I gave birth to this beautiful soul...We have come along way together, in times of happiness and in times of sorrow we have been there for each other".
She described her late daughter as caring, bubbling, loving, kind, enthusiastic and God-loving.
Pursuit of suspect
According to Thika West sub-County police boss Mr Laurence Muchangi, a probe by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) is ongoing.
"We have recorded a statement from the female friend (name withheld) who discovered her dead body. She has cooperated with us and we are after a male suspect..." Mr Muchangi said.
He said the working theory so far being treated as motive is that the male suspect had earlier been jilted by the deceased, managed to lure her to Thika and proceeded to take her life before going into hiding.
Mr Muchangi said the body bore marks of a struggle as well as indications of sexual assault.
"Suffice it to say that we are not hiding anything, we are committed to cracking this case, just a little bit of patience and soon we will accord this cruelty its measure of justice," he said.
This came as it emerged that the deceased had in April this year survived a road accident where she was hit by a private car in Nairobi’s Roysambu estate.
After eyewitnesses provided her mother with the registration details of the white Lexus car, police managed to track it together with its owner and were both detained at Kasarani police station.
The case is in court.
