Tom Osinde found dead in River Kuja days after going missing

Mokaya Osinde

A vehicle belonging to missing former Treasury official Fred Tom Mokaya Osinde (inset) was been positively identified by his family at Kilgoris police station in Narok County. 

Photo credit: File I Nation Media Group

The body of former Treasury official Tom Fred Mokaya Osinde, who went missing last week, has been found in a river. 

Migori police commander Peter Kimani said his family positively identified the body. 

The body has been taken to the mortuary at Migori Referral Hospital, where a post-mortem is expected later today.

On Wednesday, detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations arrested two workers at Osinde's home in Ngata, Nakuru County, as they intensified investigations into his disappearance.

At the same time the investigators also spent more than four hours, conducting a search and interrogating workers at the home that sits on a ten acres farm.

“We have conducted a thorough search of a section of the expansive 10-acres farm where Osinde's residence stands. We covered about seven acres. This is part of the probe into the disappearance of the ex-Treasury official, “revealed Rongai sub county criminal investigations officer Donatta Atieno.

“We also interrogated workers at the home and we have arrested two of them to further aid in the investigations. The two are currently held at the Menengai Police Station. So far we are following crucial leads and we are making great progress in the investigations, “added Ms Atieno.

She revealed that the suspects in custody are being investigated for the offence of abduction revealing that they were taken to court on Wednesday evening where police requested for custodial orders and were given 21 days to complete investigations before producing them again in court.

Investigators have also confiscated more than five mobile phones they took from the employees who were present when he went missing.

Ms Atieno said that the phones have since been taken for a forensic analysis to establish their communication with Osinde.

She said that they noted that two electricity switches in the upper upstairs  of his house had been vandalised ,to establish whether they were spoiled before or after he went missing.

"His phone is not going through. It was switched off  most probably in Nakuru hours after he left for his Nyamira home. Our agenda today was the  probability of how we can get this person dead or alive. We are also looking if we can get a gravesite then we can get a breakthrough. We also looked at the septic tank," she said.

Osinde is a brother to the late ambassador Ken Osinde, the former Chief of Staff in the office of then Deputy President William Ruto (now President)

Ken also served as Kenya’s ambassador to Germany, between 2010 and 2014, before serving as chief of staff at the Harambee House Annex. He died in a Nairobi Hospital in October 2021, after a brief illness