Dan Mauti: Postmortem report on my son Tamati Mauti doesn’t add up

I want to be shown people who jumped from the eighth floor, hit the ground and then sustained such minor injuries.

On November 19, a BBC employee was found murdered in her hotel room in Nairobi. Kate Mitchell had been stabbed. A window to her eighth-floor room in Ibis Styles Hotel had been broken. On the first floor lay the body of a man Mitchell had been with earlier. Police have since claimed Tamati Mauti killed Mitchell in her hotel room and then plunged to his death.

But his father, Dan Mauti, has protested his son’s innocence. He argues the narrative raises more questions and the post-mortem examination has muddied the waters further.

Here is his story as told to: STEVE OTIENO

 “My son was a very kind murderer who could go into a room and lock the door, murder someone very effectively - he is the one who locked the door, I hear - then break the window and jump over from the eighth floor, to whatever floor they say. If he could access the room, lock it, kill the person, why could he not just open the door again and walk out?

What we are doing here is to find the truth.

In the coverage of this issue, it is as if some people are projecting all their arrows towards the family. I do not know why this is the case?

Someone just called, telling me, “Your son is no more.” Before I digest how, where, when, the following day, my son is a murderer in a hotel. The story is everywhere and circulated everywhere.

We have deep questions. Where is this hotel? What was their connection to my son? How many times has my son been at the same hotel?

Why is the coverage of my son so biased? I mean my son is dead, even if information given tarnishes his name, no matter what lies are heaped on him, he is gone, he cannot defend himself!

If reports can be made about his fiancée and the planned wedding, why are we not mentioning anything about this British national? Who was she? What was she doing here? How did they come into contact?

My son is going to be buried on December 1 right there (points at where his son will be buried), and I want people to come and see what kind of people will be here. Show me your friends and I will tell you who you are.

My doors here are open, anyone can come in. Let the best investigators come and see for themselves and tell me if my son was a murderer.

If anyone could ever get the other side of the story, it would have been very helpful.

I know my children, but now it appears my son Tamati is a murderer of the church. All my children are Christians and very active in their churches. They have freedom of worship. I do not force them to go to any particular church. Their mother is a Seventh Day Adventist. Tamati went to CITAM in Karen. And the people from church will soon be here.

Basic questions

I have people who are very senior and live abroad, and one of them asked me very basic questions. Where is the weapon that he used? Where is Tamati’s wallet? Where is the phone? Who witnessed this thing?

What is being questioned about all these gaps?

Tell me, this thing happened in a hotel. The hotel should have by now answered some questions. For instance, how did these customers come to the hotel?

The first statement I saw from the police is that Tamati was there and a scuffle erupted. I wonder, if there is such a case of violence, and the hotel’s security is there, how then did they allow the customer to continue staying in the hotel?

For instance, you have been here, we have been talking for a while, have I shown you my bedroom or have you shown me yours? No, because we have just met and we still do not know each other that well. Then, how did my son know the woman’s exact room, and again followed her and then killed her?

Do you know of (the late IEBC IT manager) Chris Msando? He was the man to verify the presidential elections. Yet, the reports about him were that he had gone with his girlfriend to the bush and that is where he was found dead. Tell me, would a man of that stature go to the bush with a woman? Certainly not, but in this country, these things are possible.

The woman who was killed was a BBC employee. Why is the BBC silent on this matter? What are they saying? They have to tell us, what was she doing in Ethiopia before she came to Kenya? Even how this issue was handled is troubling - how could the media have known all the details about the incident before the family knew?

Police report

There are so many versions of this story.

Now, on Monday, when I went to the (Kilimani) Police Station, nobody was there. The investigating officer was not there. The detective handling the case was not there. We were told he was in a meeting.

One of the officers asked us what exactly we wanted. I told them we were looking for the police report on my son’s case, and he asked me, “Which report?”

One, I was very perturbed. The police asked me to go to the station and they are now asking me which report that was. If I had the report, why would I have gone there?

That is when I was told to go and bury my son then other things will follow.

We are not thirsty to bury people. We are thirsty to get the information about how my son came to die!

And this person we are being told he has killed - under which circumstances? The most disturbing issue traumatising the family is that we have no information.

Who is this person that was killed? I have never seen this person, and unfortunately, I will never see her again, just like I will never see my son again. We are in this predicament now.

How come nothing has been said about what exactly the British national had come to do in Kenya? How did it happen that she was at the hotel? My son singled her out and followed her to her room? I know people will say that is what the police report says, and that is the same report that we actually want to get.

What happened? This is the point where you can now brand my son as a murderer. How did they get to the point of alleging that he is a murderer? The only murderer of this person. What is the evidence? Who was there with this woman? We have not been told. Was he just drinking alone in the bar or was he with that woman? What kind of people were with them? What were they doing there? What function were they having that would make them meet?

Is there any evidence to show that these people had any relationship whatsoever?

Simply, we do not know what transpired up to the point of reading it in the newspapers and social media platforms.

Why can’t the police come and ask the press to stop covering this matter, because they are investigating and they will issue a conclusive final report?

The information should not be released in bits! I cannot even eat. I have been receiving many calls, people asking me if I have seen the latest update on the case. It is totally painful, it is excruciating pain being added every single time, whether morning, during the day or night, when people keep asking you about the death of your son. Tamati was not a man who could be branded a murderer.

Fiancee

I want the hotel to tell me how many times Tamati had been there. Was he a regular customer? Did they know him? Who told the people who went to pick up his fiancée their room number? How did these people know this murderer had a fiancée? Did he pronounce that he had a fiancée and then the hotel knew where the fiancée was when he went to commit the murder?

How do you get all this information about the fiancée?

She has not even been to the mortuary to see the body, not even as we are talking.

I beg everyone to stop bringing somebody like her into this matter, because I do not know why they have even actually named her in such a matter. She is an innocent third party in this whole affair.

I will be very happy to get the full information.

Who is this person being talked about who is dead? Who is this person who was killed? What could have been the reason for Tamati wanting to kill her?

You cannot wake up and, if you are a murderer, go to a bar and then kill the person you have just met at the bar. That is very dangerous. There must be very many murderers in this world then. People who just go to bars, see someone they like and then their next instinct is to kill this very person that they like.

The hotel must tell me what exactly was Tamati and the woman doing there. How come Tamati went to her room?

Postmortem?

I do not know why the government is very stingy on the postmortem examination report. On Monday, we were told he (Tamati) had been taken for more investigation.

If, at all, somebody committed a crime at four in the morning - in this case, my son is the murderer - why would they pick up the body and then keep it for two days. Why? Why stay with the body?

That he killed someone and jumped to his death and no one knew about it is unbelievable.

If an accident of such a manner happened, guests at the hotel would have known. How come there is no single photograph or video taken by the guests who should have witnessed the incident?

The body is taken and the family is only allowed to see him after two days.

My son was a good son. And if we have got murderers who do their work in public, then we do not have any protection because murderers can come, perform in radios, can do so many things in public, move around and then only be (confirmed as killers) after committing murder. My son was a murderer who walked around with his identification card, a murderer going to commit crimes only after booking a room with his girlfriend.

The post-mortem examination. I have a question about this postmortem. In law, a letter, a coma, an apostrophe changes everything. The postmortem report I got does not totally tally at all. That is why I did not want to talk much about it.

What they actually brought yesterday (Wednesday) had some insertions, creating the scenario that he jumped. In postmortems, I had hoped they would do what is usually done, that they do the examination and write a report on what kind of harm happened to the body and actually caused the death. But this one is projecting that the injuries sustained on the body show that he likely jumped. Who asked for the opinion?

What made them narrow down to that scenario? The funny side is, somebody who jumped from the eighth floor only broke a few ribs on one side, there are bruises on his left midriff, the backbone is intact, the legs are intact, no joint broken except they noted blunt trauma in the back of his head.

I may not have a medical background but I want to be shown examples of people who jumped from the eighth floor, hit the ground and then sustained such minor injuries. Something is not adding up.

The family is considering getting a second opinion on the post-mortem examination.

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