Veteran Health and Science journalist Gatonye Gathura, who went missing on October 26, 2021, has been found dead.
Gathura’s body was traced to Naivasha Sub-County Referral Hospital morgue.
Police say that on October 26 the body was booked at the facility as an “unknown male adult”.
Authorities further say Gathura’s body had been found dumped on the Naivasha-Mai Mahiu Road on the day he was reported missing.
After a month of being preserved at Naivasha morgue as an “unknown male adult”, the Registrar of Persons used finger prints to establish his identity on Thursday.
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Police said Gathura might have been strangled. A copper wire was found around his neck, when his body was retrieved from the roadside in Kihoto Estate in Naivasha.
Naivasha Sub-County Police Commander Samuel Waweru said no identification documents were found on the deceased.
“We are treating his death as murder. We suspect he was killed elsewhere and the body dumped in Naivasha,” Waweru told The Standard.
Gathura, who wrote for The Standard and Nation in the past, ran a Health and Science blog called Rocket Science (rocketsciences.co.ke).
He owned the website, whose content touched on reproductive health, Covid-19, mental health, common diseases, health research, among others.
His last article on the website titled Sterilised men protect their women against ovarian cancer – study, was published on October 19.
Prior to that, he had written two articles on October 16. One was titled Kenyans drop guard as Covid-19 fatigue sets in, and the other titled 20,000 sex workers in Nairobi have mental health issues – study.
Gathura had operated the website for five years and eleven months.
