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The killer of the young woman who was brutally murdered and the body dismembered demanded a Sh500,000 ransom from her father for her release.

Preliminary investigations indicate the ransom was demanded even after Rita Waeni Muendo, a 20-year-old Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) student, had already been murdered.
The killer used Waeni’s phone to demand the ransom.

“On Sunday, January 14, at 5am, her father received a message, delivered from her phone number, demanding a ransom of Sh500,000 within 24 hours for her release. With this message, the family reported the matter to the police and DCI, and investigations began,” the family said.

The killer had also sent a photo of the deceased, while lying down, as he prepared to kill her using a hacksaw. This, it appears, was a tactic to extract the ransom from the family.

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) have gone back to the drawing board after a suspect who was on Tuesday arrested at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA), just before he flew out of the country, turned out to be the wrong person.

The man was travelling using a Mozambican passport.

“She was due to join her fourth and final year of University at JKUAT,” the family said of the deceased.
According to the family, the deceased left her aunt’s residence in Syokimau, Machakos county, to meet a friend.

“We believe she was lured by her killer, who also tried to extort money from her family, even after killing her. We are broken and our lives have been shattered, at the loss of Waeni, and especially how she was killed,” they said.

Agreed destination

The family, through their spokesperson Dr Lilian Mutea, described the deceased as an intelligent, smart girl beyond her age at the very start of her youth.

The deceased had been in contact with her killer as she went to the agreed destination. However, no more details are available regarding who else she met as her phone is also missing.

The two, the deceased and her killer, only communicated through Instagram and were in communication until the day they met. Some of the chats have been retrieved by the detectives from the deceased’s IG account.

It has emerged that the killer never made a phone call nor exchanged phone numbers with the woman.
According to the IG conversation, the killer gave the girl directions to the meeting place. He had also told her that they needed to meet as he was planning to leave the country, a trick she fell for.

At one point, the girl expressed fear but the man assured her he would not harm her. He even told her he was wearing a white pair of shoes. After alighting, the woman described to the killer how she was dressed.

“The deceased’s personal belongings including her clothes and mobile phone are still missing,” police said.

At the rental apartment, detectives believe the man killed Waeni inside the bathroom, after drugging her.
According to the investigations, the main suspect stayed in Ruaka, Kiambu county, for about four days before the killing. Detectives for the second time visited Ruaka on Tuesday as they pursued leads to unravel the gruesome murder.

The dismembered body was found at the garbage collection point of Green House apartment along TRM Drive on Sunday morning.

The student joined the man who had earlier checked into the AirBnB on Saturday at around 3pm but the man is said to have left for an unknown destination around 5am.

Blood stains

The caretaker, Mark Auma, said he went to check the house at around 9.20am and noticed some blood stains on the stairs.

He checked the house and found it very clean and but with no occupant. He followed the blood stains which led him to the garbage collection point where he found the remains of a woman.

The body had been chopped into pieces and stuffed inside polythene bags. Police believe the killer used a hacksaw to inflict the fatal injuries. The suspect is said to have switched off his phone, number 0101053854, as soon as he left the premises.

The phone number is registered in a woman’s name and the first call he made, while booking the room, was from Ruaka.

The man who was at around 4.20pm captured on CCTV when he went for the room’s key appeared to be in a hurry and was wearing a white cap and spectacles, most likely to hide his identity.

Police also believe he deliberately decided to pay cash and not through M-Pesa to further conceal his identity.

He was also holding firmly a black bag that detectives believe contained the hacksaw and other materials he used in the murder.

The brutal murder took place barely a week after another woman, socialite Starlet Wahu, was also brutally murdered inside another Airbnb in South B.