When they last spoke, her daughter was bursting with the joy of nearing her dreams.
Two days before her departure to Qatar where she had found a job, Joyce Wanjiru was found in Kahawa West murdered, stabbed in the abdomen and mouth.
After years of despair and hopelessness, Wanjiru had finally landed a job, and in two days, July 30, she would be leaving for Qatar.
“The agency that was helping with her travel called my phone after missing her. They needed her to take them a passport photo,” her mother, Cecilia Nyambura, said.
Nyambura said she spoke to Wanjiru through her boyfriend, Golden Nyakundi, alias Ras, informing her of the call from the agency.
“On Monday, a day before she was killed, I called Nyakundi who then gave my daughter the phone as hers was off,” she said.
Nyambura said her daughter called her back expressing her anxiety to finally leave her home and be able to support her three children.
Wanjiru, 34, had been feeling over-dependent as they all lived together with her mother in the Kiwanja area of Ruiru.
“She said how bad she felt for not being able to secure a job in the country and barely supporting her children,” the mother said.
The next morning on July 27 as she was going to work, the mother received a call from a stranger asking her to go where her daughter had been murdered.
“I found her dead, her body lying outside near her sister’s house,” the mother said tearfully.
Wanjiru had left her home accompanied by her boyfriend to go visit her sister, Hannah, at her home near Kahawa West.
They spent the day together before leaving in the evening. Earlier, she had accompanied her eldest child who is in Form 2 to school.
In the morning, Hannah said a neighbour woke her up telling her that her sister was lying outside near her house, bleeding.
“She was not moving and I figured that she could be dead already. So I rushed to check with her boyfriend what had happened since I had left them together only to find him missing,” Hannah said.
According to the family, Wanjiru and the boyfriend differed on whether she should leave Kenya for Qatar or continue staying in the country. Nyakundi wanted her to stay.
“My sister had really struggled in vain to secure a job here in Kenya until she got the chance to leave for Qatar and we were all happy as a family. However, the turn of events has left the family with so much pain,” Derrick Muchiri, Wanjiru's brother, said.
The family said Wanjiru was stabbed with a knife in the abdomen and mouth. She also had bruises on her head, an indication she was assaulted before being murdered.
The mother said she had met Nyakundi, who the family suspects killed Wanjiru, several times and he appeared respectful.
“All we want is justice as a family; we know my sister was kind and loving,” Muchiri said.
The family took the body to Kenyatta Memorial Funeral Home where it is expected to undergo an autopsy later this week.
The matter was reported at the Kasarani police station.