The family of slain University of Nairobi lecturer Samuel Mararo, whose body was found dumped at Country Bus Station in Nairobi last Tuesday, wants the perpetrators brought to book.
Speaking to Nation, the deceased’s brother, Joseph Wambugu, said the whole family had been racked by anxiety over their loved one’s whereabouts since February 19, when he vanished without a trace.
Their long wait was brought to a painful conclusion when they received a phone call from Kamukunji Police Station yesterday, asking them to check whether the body of an unidentified man lying at City Mortuary could be that of their kin.
“It was a very sad moment when we positively identified Sam’s body. Apparently, his body was found last Tuesday and taken to the morgue around 10 am and registered as an unidentified person by the morgue attendants,” Mr Wambugu said.
The call from the authorities came almost a week after they had reported Mr Mararo as missing and had visited several hospitals in the city looking for him.
The part-time lecturer at the University of Nairobi’s Kisumu campus had left his home on Friday, February 16, to attend the burial of the father of one of his students in Vihiga.
As he left his home in Kariobangi South where he left his two children aged three and nine months under the careful watch of his wife, little did he know it was the last time he would be seeing them. He was only 37.
He arrived safely at Vihiga and attended the burial on Saturday afternoon. A few hours later, he boarded a matatu to Kisumu where he spent the night and informed his wife of his plans to leave the lakeside city around midnight, the following day.
“He boarded a bus a few minutes past Sunday midnight and told his wife that he would be home Monday morning. However, the bus had a breakdown and delayed their journey,” his bereaved brother said.
He even sent his wife photos of the mechanics working on the bus and told her the breakdown would delay his arrival. Appeased by the update, his wife relaxed and waited for her husband’s return.
When he next called, she told the police while filing her missing person report, he “did not sound like Samuel”.
“She started receiving strange calls and text messages from Monday (February 19) via WhatsApp. The caller kept asking for small amounts of money ranging between Sh500 and Sh1,000. This is when she knew this was not her husband and asked the caller to identify himself. This is when Samuel’s number went silent,” Mr Wambugu said. By this time, the person holding Mr Mararo’s phone had reached out to a few people on his contact list asking for money.
Police investigations established that, by the time the phone went silent that Monday night, some Sh9,000 had been withdrawn from an M-pesa agent shop in Kayole, Nairobi. Further investigations also unearthed that the deceased arrived in Nairobi around 3:41pm that same day, giving the police a clue on when he could have met his untimely death. It has to be between the time he alighted the bus and Tuesday morning when his corpse was found lying cold at the busy bus station in Nairobi.
Upon identifying the body at City Mortuary, the family conducted a post-mortem exam, which indicated that Mararo had been hit on his head. He also had injuries on his hands as well as signs of strangulation at his neck. At the time of his demise, the lecturer, was just about to conclude his PhD studies on Social Political Science.
Mr Mararo was the fourth-born in a family of eight children; four girls and four boys. His family, whose only demand is for justice to prevail and the criminals behind their kin’s death be arrested, plans to bury his remains at his native home in Mugunda-Nairutia village in Kieni constituency, Nyeri County, next week.
