Mystery as lovers found dead, hands clasped together

Crime scene. (Courtesy/iStockphoto)

The lovers who were found dead while holding hands in a rented apartment in Kisii Town may have lived their last days in distress and underwent untold mental suffering.

It is believed the death of 29-year-old Angela Moraa and Vincent Bosire Nyambunde, 27, could have been a culmination of untamed anxieties that may have wrecked them to the core.

The deaths of the two have left all those who knew them in utter shock and disbelief. Their bodies were found in an apartment at Nyamataro, the outskirts of Kisii Town on November 29. According to police, Moraa may have died two days earlier before Bosire, a medical intern at Kisii Teaching and Referral Hospital (KTRH).

“The woman’s body had started decomposing and was very swollen unlike that of the man which seemed fresh by a day or two,” an investigating officer said.

In the house, bottles of sedatives and body preservatives alongside syringes were found in the bedroom.

How a woman with a husband and a child would die in a house of her secret lover, thousands of kilometers away from her matrimonial home and why it could happen in such a bizarre manner remains a question family and friends are grappling with.

According to the family, Moraa has been married for a long time and is a permanent resident of the US with her husband. However, a relative claimed that Moraa was not married but had a child with a man based in the US, from whom she had since separated.

Secret landing

What remains a puzzle to the family is the date when Moraa jetted into the country. The woman is said to have secretly flown to Kenya and it could not be immediately ascertained when she exactly travelled or arrived in Kenya.

Questions are lingering as to why she could not first visit her matrimonial home at Nyacheki in Kisii County or at her mother’s house, but instead decided to go to her grandma’s place at Gekano, about 10 kilometers away from the parent’s home.

“We only came to know about her presence in the village when we received the news of her attempted suicide,” one of her relatives who never wanted to share his name due to sensitivity of the matter said.

The grandma’s place is about seven kilometers from Bosire’s home at Bogeeka 2 Village in Rigoma.

Prior to her death, days after arriving at her grandmother’s place, Moraa is said to have attempted to take her own life by ingesting a chemical.

After the failed suicide attempt, the US trained nurse was admitted to (KTRH) where her secret lover worked. It is said Moraa’s relatives at some point barred Bosire from visiting her at her sick bed, but later, the young man was allowed to see her.

Moraa, who was then under the care of her mother, would later be discharged and went out of the facility in the company of Bosire.

From then on, she was never seen again until when the shocking news of their death broke out.

Distress call

But for Bosire, a distress call he made to his mother before their bodies were discovered two days later, was a warning of a tragedy that lay in wait. 

“He had called me and informed me that he was admitted at the hospital’s ICU and that anything was bound to happen. From then on, I never heard from him,” the mother, Mary Nyaboke said. For the past three months, Bosire’s life had totally changed.

Colleagues at KTRH, who fondly referred to him as “Bible”, noticed that he had resorted to heavy drinking, a habit that was never associated with him since joining the facility.   

“Many were the days he would appear so much distressed. We would talk to him but he always kept to himself,” said a close friend with whom he worked with at the hospital.

On the day he went missing, Bosire is said to have presented himself at KTRH, wanting to be admitted after claiming he was unwell.

“His fellow doctors questioned him why he wanted to be admitted and yet he wasn’t showing any symptoms that would prompt an admission. After they declined the request, he walked away, but seemed distressed,” said a medic.

After failing to reach Bosire on his phone or trace his whereabouts, fellow medics reached out to his mother on November 28. The family assigned one of his cousins to check on him at his residence. But the apartment was locked from inside, which prompted a break-in by the police who discovered the two in bed, holding hands.

An officer privy to the investigation revealed that the two seemed to have been in shock after one of them discovered to have been carrying a sexually transmitted infection. Police sampled the bottles of the drugs that were found in the house and their investigations. 

Kisii County Criminal Investigations Officer (CCIO) Catherine Njue declined to comment on the incident. “We don’t have any information to share as of now,” Ms Njue said.

A scene of crime expert said one of the two may have caused the death of the other or possibly, one may have committed suicide in the absence of the other before the other could also follow suit.

“These are closed investigations because there is no possibility there was a third person in the house because the door was locked from inside. The two possibilities could be one killed the other before killing self or, one committed suicide before the other,” explained the officer.

However, the officer hastened to add that murder may have preceded suicide.

“Going by the happenings and the behaviour of the man, there was a likelihood of a case of murder before the other killed self,” said the officer.