On Tuesday last week, Mr Peter Gathu, a pastor in Lamuria, Laikipia County, and his wife had some errands in Nyeri County. So when they got to Nyeri, they called their daughter Joy, who has been residing in the area for some time. She was schooled at Nyeri Polytechnic and may have chosen to stick around after finishing her studies. Joy joined her parents, and for a whole day, they ran errands together. It was more of a family reunion, especially for mother and daughter. In the evening, they requested her to accompany them back home, but she declined the offer. She said she had a work engagement the following day, and therefore, she couldn’t travel with them. ‘Lakini ujue tumekumiss sana’, her father told her. And they left.
On Wednesday, Joy and her parents didn’t communicate. On Thursday as well. They had just met on Tuesday, so the parents didn’t feel the urge to call her. On Thursday at about 3.30 pm, Pastor Gathu, Joy’s father, received a call from someone who identified himself as John. He said Joy was his friend and she had been missing for a day or two. Baba Joy didn’t know John or how he was related to his daughter, but he promised to travel the following day, on Friday, so they could follow up on the matter together. On Friday last week, Baba Joy, his wife, and Joy’s cousin were in Nyeri.
They met John Raiden Muriithi at the police station. The handset he was using was Joy’s. When he was asked about it, he said Joy had removed her SIM card and left it. It didn’t raise suspicion at that point since the family didn’t suspect something major out of her disappearance. While at the police station, John mentioned to Baba Joy that there was a body that had been discovered at Ngangarithi, but he had checked, and it didn’t belong to Joy. Still, Baba Joy didn’t process that information. The death of his daughter had not registered in his mind. While the police were taking notes from the family and John, he kept saying his mother was calling him, asking him to leave. He said the mother was insisting he had done his part by reporting her disappearance, writing a police statement, and informing her parents. She wanted him to leave immediately. But Baba Joy insisted they had to do this together, for his daughter. The police investigating the matter requested Joy’s ID card. John offered to have it brought. Unknown to them, that’s the opportunity he needed badly to slip off. He picked up the phone that was on the table, pretended he was calling someone, walked out casually, and disappeared. Joy’s cousin tried to find him, but couldn’t trace him. Baba Joy, too, couldn’t see him. And his mobile phone went silent. Till now, it has never been used again. That changed the angle of investigation, and John became a suspect. Baba Joy now asked the police about the said body that had been discovered at Ngangarithi.
They led the family to the morgue. It was, however, just a piece of a body. A body without a head, upper limbs, lower limbs and neck. In that state, the police figured it wasn’t easy to positively identify the body. So they proposed DNA, and the family was comfortable with that. But just before they could step out, the father remembered his daughter had a birthmark. Somewhere on the chest. So they checked the body, and true to it, they could see it, though faintly. Emotions ran high. They tried to control themselves and checked one more time. They half believed it was their daughter’s body, and half believed she was somewhere, alive. Mama Joy knew there was another way to prove whether this was her daughter. She remembered she had another mark on one of her legs. Unfortunately, the body before them had no legs. And so they settled on a police request for a DNA. Just before they could step out and go home, they received a call. They were asked to wait for other officers. After about an hour, the officers came with another body bag. It had pieces of the missing legs and hands. Mama Joy checked, and her fears were confirmed. One of the legs had Joy’s mark. The body before them was their daughter’s. The missing legs and hands were discovered in a pit. However, the head and neck are yet to be found. According to the postmortem report, the murderer picked a hacksaw and took his time to cut one piece after another.
After successfully dismembering Joy into pieces, he decided to dispose of the pieces in different locations. No one knows where the head is. And the neck 😢 😢.
