DCI identifies suspect in 19-year-old KIMC student murder

Purity Wangechi was found dead in Kiambu on May 14, 2022. [Source: DCI, Twitter]

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations has identified a suspect in the gruesome murder of a 19-year-old student at the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication.

Kiambu Deputy Directorate of Criminal Investigations Officer Hadick Jumba had told The Standard that Purity Wangechi Karinga’s body was discovered in a thicket in Buriria Village, with two stab wounds in the neck.

A tweet by DCI on Saturday midnight indicated that the main suspect in the teenager’s murder was only identified as ‘VDJFLEX’, a man she was in an intimate relationship with.

“Detectives have launched a manhunt for a man only identified as VDJ Flex, the main suspect behind the cold-blooded murder of 19-year-old Purity Wangeci Kiringa, whose lifeless body was discovered today morning close to Mburiria estate in Kiambu county,” the investigation body shared on its official Twitter account.

However, police say the suspect went missing before they could catch up with him.

DCI say preliminary investigations revealed that Purity left college on Friday to visit her boyfriend in Kirigiti, Kiambu County.

“According to her friends who were interviewed by the sleuths at the college, Purity and the boyfriend recently had a misunderstanding,” DCI says.

Purity’s body was found alongside documents, including a national identity card and a school identification card.

Passersby spotted her body on Saturday morning, May 14, and alerted police.

Wangechi’s body was taken to City Mortuary in Nairobi County pending an autopsy.

The suspect is still at large.