Detectives in Buruburu have arrested a man they believe is the main suspect in the brutal murder of a woman in Umoja II estate in Nairobi whose body was found dismembered and dumped.
David Migwi Kariuki who police say had been on the run after the woman’s killing was arrested in his hideout on Thursday.
His arrest brings the number of suspects arrested in connection to the murder to four. Nancy Wanja Njuguna, Kennedy Otieno Omar and Nicholas Kimanthi were earlier arrested.
Kariuki was on Thursday arraigned before Makadara chief magistrate Heston Nyagah but he did not take plea as the investigating officer sought 14 more days to detain the suspect pending investigations.
The body of the unidentified woman was found cut into pieces, stuffed in four sacks and dumped at Tumaini Primary School in Umoja II estate.
The three other suspects Wanja,Otieno and Kimanthi were on Tuesday arraigned but did not take plea as well.
All the four were locked up at Buruburu police station after the court declined an application to release them on bond.
According to the police, the body of the unidentified woman was retrieved from one of the houses in Umoja II where, Wanja a 53-year-old, is the landlady. It was found dumped together with wedding décor materials.
In an affidavit filed in court, Inspector John Kanampiu of Buruburu DCI offices said Wanja had rented out one of her houses to Kariuki, but early last month she decided to lock it up after he had failed to pay rent for several months.
After the house was locked, Kariuki came back and broke in and took away his belongings, leaving behind huge bales of wedding décor materials and a blue water tank.
On May 30 after Kariuki ran away, Wanja hired three men Kimanthi, Kamau and Otieno to clean the house and carried the wedding décor materials and dirt from the house to the dumping site.
Inspector Kanampiu said Kamau was still at large.
He said on May 31 at 10am police officers received information that there was a body of an unidentified woman that was cut into pieces and stuffed into four sacks spotted at the field of Tumaini Primary school in Umoja II.
After initial investigations, police established that the body had been ferried from the house number 9, Amani Court, belonging to Wanja which was rented out to Kariuki. The body was wrapped together with other waste from the house.
Kanampiu sought 21 days orders to detain the suspects at Buruburu police station pending investigations.
He said he needed to record statements from potential witnesses, get a postmortem for the body and take samples from the body of the deceased to the Government Chemist.
He said that if the suspects were freed they would likely jeopardise the investigations.
But Wanja through her lawyer objected to the application and said she was just a landlady who had rented out her house and had nothing to do with the murder.
Wanja apparently did not have details of her missing tenant, including copies of the national ID and phone number.
She said keeping her in cells put her in danger of contracting Covid-19 owing to her age.
Kimanthi said that he was a garbage collector and was hired to take the bales of dirt wrapped in the materials to a dumpsite.
“I asked for Sh1,000 but Wanja offered Sh500 and after negotiations settled on Sh700. I did not remove anything from the house as by the time I was called, Omar and another man had already removed everything to a corridor outside the house,” Kimanthi told senior principal magistrate Heston Nyaga.
He said there was a foul smell coming from the bales but he assumed the materials were smelly because of being drenched in water and he did not bother to check because they were huge heaps.
Nyaga ruled that considering the seriousness of the matter under investigation it would only be fair to give the investigating team time.
Edited by Henry Makori