Victim’s phone connects driver to businesswoman’s death

 

Photo of businesswoman Miriam Wangari Kariuki at the Kabete police station notice board. [Courtesy]

On December 29 last year at around 10am, businesswoman Miriam Wangari Nairobi left her place of work in Nairobi.

Wangari, 57, was joined by the family driver who was driving a blue pickup. The duo was headed to Thamanda area in Zambezi, Kiambu, where she was constructing a building.

Wangari’s husband, James Kariuki, was left at their hardware shop in Kangemi. At around 7pm, Wangari spoke to her husband on the phone.

She told him she would not make it back to their Uthiru home the same day since she was feeling unwell.

She was to spend the night in one of the completed rooms in the new building and return home the following morning.

Kariuki, her husband, told Kabete Directorate of Criminal Investigation officers there was nothing suspicious about that.

The following morning he tried to reach Wangari on the phone but she was unavailable. He called one of the workers at the site to find out if they knew where she was. He was then told she had been at the site but did not spend the night as she left at around 7pm. Two days later, on December 31, a missing person’s report was filed at Kabete police station.

The family put up posters of Wangari in strategic points, including police stations, seeking information on her whereabouts.

Officers at Kabete police station told the family to continue searching even as investigations continued.

Wangari’s husband Kariuki was among those who recorded statements with the police. Also questioned was family driver James Mbugua who said he dropped her off at her house on the same day they visited the construction site.

On January 1, police were called to a scene at Karanjee area, about 30km from the family home in Limuru.  Residents had discovered a dismembered human body.

The parts were stashed in a gunny bag and dumped by the roadside. It was a pair of arms and limbs that looked freshly cut. Initial police investigations indicated the limbs, some of which had nail polish, were those of a woman. Back at Kabete police station, DCI officers continued with investigations into Wangari’s disappearance.

At the time, family and friends looked for her in hospitals and mortuaries in Nairobi and Kiambu. The investigators hoped Wangari’s mobile phone would aid the search.

Meanwhile, detectives at Tigoni police station had taken fingerprints from the recovered body parts and managed to identify the women through the registrar of persons.

Since nobody had filed a missing person’s report at Tigoni police station or claimed the body parts, the investigation stalled.

Last Wednesday, Kabete DCI officers got a breakthrough in the case when they traced a signal of Wangari’s mobile phone to Kangemi.

Police arrested family driver Mbugua, 45, who was found with Wangari’s phone.

The investigators say he is expected to help the police with the case. It is suspected that Wangari’s killers could also have siphoned money from her accounts.

Kabete DCI officers on Friday presented Mbugua before a Kibera court where they were granted 21 days to continue holding him. On the same day, Wangari’s family identified the remains at the city mortuary. 

Dagoretti police boss Patrick Gikunda said police will arrest other suspects linked to Wangari’s disappearance and murder.