What post-mortem on US-based Nyamira couple reveals

Edward Morema Nyagechi, 62 and his wife Grace Mong’ina Morema,

US-based businessman Edward Morema Nyagechi, 62, and his wife Grace Mong’ina Morema, 58, were discovered murdered in their house in Nyamira on Tuesday morning.

Photo credit: Family Album

The US-based Nyamira husband and wife, who were killed a week ago were stabbed and bludgeoned in the head, a post-mortem has shown.

Edward Morema Nyagechi was bludgeoned several times in the head, and his wife Grace Mong'ina Nyagechi was strangled. She was also bludgeoned and stabbed, according to post-mortems conducted at the Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital.

The bodies of Morema, 62, and Mong’ina, 60, were found in different rooms at the family house in Nyamakoroto village a week ago.

While Morema’s body was found in a pool of blood in a corner of his garage, Mong’ina’s was found in the guest bedroom. Both bodies had cuts and their hands and legs were tightly bound with wire.

Police in Nyamira told the Nation on Monday that they are still conducting investigations and assured relatives that security apparatus have been mobilised to bring to book the culprits in the heinous crime.

However, there are fears that it may take long for the family to get justice because the killers covered their moves and tried as much as possible to conceal evidence.

Sources indicate that the assailants dismantled the CCTV camera DVR before locking the house and leaving the scene of the crime.

Masaba North sub-county police commander Robert Ndambiri told journalists that forensic investigators from the homicide department in Nairobi had been deployed to help unravel the killings.

Mr Ndambiri appealed to the public to avoid contaminating the crime scene to allow seamless investigations.

"When police have put yellow tape at a crime scene, it's important for the public to respect that because that is intended to preserve evidence. When the public interferes with the area where the tape has been put demarcating the crime scene, they destroy the evidence," said Mr Ndambiri.

The police boss said that they are still holding two workers from the homestead — a farmhand and a house help.

Morema’s family expressed outrage at the unsolved murders and the slow pace of investigations into the death of the couple’s nephew, Prof Zachary Mosoti, who was killed two years ago in circumstances that still remain unclear.

They called on authorities to widen their net and conduct thorough investigations to establish who is evidently determined to wipe out anyone seen as prosperous in the family of the victims.

The killing of the couple is viewed as being closely related to the suspected murder in December 2021 of Mosoti, 59, who was a lecturer at the United States International University (USIU) - Africa.

Mosoti, who was believed to have been with a woman, was found dead in Nairobi and the woman has been missing for the past two years.

There has been speculation and conflicting statements as to the motive of the brutal killings of the couple, but relatives have cautioned ‘useless reports digging into the personal life’ of Morema in what looks like a well-choreographed scheme to mislead investigators.