Nanyuki pastor in court over mysterious murder of woman in 2018

A pastor was on Tuesday arraigned in the High Court in Nanyuki over the 2018 murder of a woman whose remains were only recently discovered.

However, Pastor David Wagiita of First Pentecostal Church-Nanyuki, the prime suspect in the murder of Ruth Gathoni, did not enter a plea when he was presented before Justice Anthony Ndung'u.

The prosecution asked the court to adjourn the case, allowing the state to appoint a lawyer for the accused.

Funded by the state

Murder is a capital offence and suspects who cannot afford a lawyer are given legal representation funded by the state.

Judge Ndung'u ordered that the accused be brought before him on February 21 to be formally charged with murder.

Gathoni went missing on August 18, 2018, with the family telling detectives that she was last seen with Pastor Wagiita in Nyeri Town boarding a matatu bound for Nanyuki.

Lack of evidence 

Shortly after her disappearance, Wagiita was arrested and charged with kidnapping but was acquitted due to lack of evidence linking him to the crime.

This prompted the family to embark on a frantic search for their lost loved one, which only ended on September 30 last year when a human skull was exhumed from a shallow grave by construction workers at Muthaiga Estate in Nanyuki Town.

The workers were digging a trench to build a perimeter wall when they came across a human skull and hair, believed to be that of a woman. It is in the same compound where Gathoni and the pastor allegedly spent a night before she was reported missing.

DNA tests 

Detectives visited the site and exhumed more remains, which were confirmed by DNA tests earlier this month to be those of the long-lost woman.

Gathoni's remains were finally given a proper burial on January 9 this year in Unjiru village, Tetu Sub-county, Nyeri County, during an emotional funeral presided over by clerics from the African Independent Pentecostal Church of Africa (AIPCA).