Kenyan women share horror stalker experiences

The case of Ivy Wangechi, the slain Moi University Medicine 6th year student, has brought out vital questions concerning the safety of Kenyan women. While the suspect’s revelation is to the contrary, Ivy’s friends termed her relationship with the suspect, Naftali Kinuthia, as sour. According to their account, Kinuthia was Ivy’s stalker, and she was only doing her best to avoid him. The friends maintained that Kinuthia had become obsessed with Ivy. He, making persistent moves to win Wangeci’s love, had been stalking her for the last one year and he had traveled to Eldoret several times, but she declined to meet him.

Concerned, a Facebook user took to her wall to share her sentiments on Ivy’s foul murder in the hands of her alleged stalker by prompting her lady friends to share their experiences. What followed was a series of confessions of heart-wrenching stalker experiences.

One user opened up about her experience from college: “In college many years ago, I borrowed a text book from a guy sitting next to me and my nightmare began. I don't know how he got all my details I think he must have followed me to my hostel but everywhere I turned he was behind me like a ghost. He once turned up at my door at 6am with a bottle of wine and a chain as a gift. I declined, wueh! Suicidal letters followed mpaka akaandikia Dean of students. Next thing I reported to police. I even ended up becoming a day scholar. Dad would drop me in the morning and pick me in the evening. Close friends to the guy said he had made a dummy of me in his room!!!!”

Another shared her encounter with a stalker neighour: “The last place I lived, thank God I moved this year. There was a next door neighbor, he asked me out, I politely declined. Since then he used to give me chills. I used to feel his footsteps on my window. I even used to lock my house with a padlock even during the day. The bathroom window was on the corridor side, I once caught him almost try to take a video on his phone while taking a shower ( am still traumatized by this), the window was high enough, I don't even know how he though he would succeed. Thank God I noticed before he could capture anything. In the mornings at 5.45 A.M I would always be awake. He used to leave at this hour. I would feel him walking and stopping on getting to my door for a moment. I always held my breathe. Dude was so crazy, he would randomly knock, he removed my bulb holder on the security light and placed both the holder and the bulb on my door, since I used to leave the light on at night and peep to see who's on the door. I was lucky I am very mean with my number.”

For this user, she had to handle an abusive man who doubled up as her stalker: “I had this guy.... I was very young and naive. He was somehow over 35yrs...... Manipulative and a narcissist kinda guy. He would come in my house 5am in the morning just to check and sniff My panties. He would find me standing with a male friend and out of nowhere stand in between us and start asking me why I'm on the road and I'm supposed to be home cooking for kids we've together. Mind you I didn't have his kids.. There is a time he ran after a red Mercedes for more than 5kilometres thinking I was inside that car with my boss.... Another day he visits a police camp claiming I'm dating one of the Askari and surrenders........asking the officers to shoot him. My last straw was when he nyongaaad me for hrs in his house just because I denied him sex! Wah!”

Another user, apparently from Ivy’s campus, also shared her encounter with a stalker-cum-abductor: “I had a stalker when I was in Med school. The guy could text that he has seen me cross the road from the hostel to MTRH. That I look beautiful and he was waiting for me yo graduate so he can marry me. He could text at wee hours. One day when I was out partying with my girls, I got high and decided to grab a cab home. Two of my girls took me out of the club and chose a cab of the man who was there begging to take us home. From town to MTRH is 5mins drive. The guy took a different route and started over speeding. I screamt. I knew that was my last day. I was dressed in a hot pant and a cleavage revealing top. I thought about how my name will be tarnished. I was screaming the whole time. He took a route as if going to chepkoilel campus...... How I escaped and got rescued by a cab driver who knows me and was driving back to town after dropping some students at chepkoilel is a mystery. Then the following day the guy texted me that niliponea. He had planned to gang rape me with his boys. I reported to the cops. Never heard from him again to date. May God bless Kim (Moi med school students most fav cab guy.”

For Ivy, what followed was murder most foul. She was hacked to death in broad daylight by the suspect as she left the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Eldoret where she was doing her practical attachment. Witnesses pursued the suspect as he attempted to escape, pelting him with stones before police rescued him from the mob.