Murang’a rivers where killers dump victims

Murang’a county mortuary is holding eight unidentified bodies which have been collected in various places over the past few months.

County Chief Executive Officer for Health Joseph Mbai said all the bodies are male and they were retrieved from rivers and bushes in the area.

Out of the eight bodies, one has both hands and head missing making identification difficult.

He said families, who have their kin missing, should visit the facility and see if they can identify them.

In the past two weeks, four bodies have been retrieved from various rivers in the area, raising concern among residents who say the county had become a dumping ground for murder victims.

One body was found in River Mukungai stuffed in a gunny bag. It later turned out that the body belonged to Elijah Obuong’, one of the four men kidnapped in Kitengela, Kajiado county late last month.

Cruel murder

A week later, a body of a 30-year-old man was found in River Mathioya about 100 metres downstream from where the first body was found.

The body was identified as that of Michael Kiarie who hailed from Nakuru but was living in Umoja in Nairobi.

The two bodies were discovered by sand harvesters in the river.

Kiarie’s uncle, Peterson Njenga, said the family did not  understand why he was killed in such a cruel manner.

“The killers tortured him, even cut off his hands and put his body in a bag before dumping it in the river,” he said.

The sand harvesters say about five bodies have been dumped in that section of the river since December last year.

They say the place appears to be a preferred dumping place for attackers who kill their victims elsewhere.

The river is in a steep valley with the nearest home being about five hundred meters away.

“It is usually deserted especially at night as there are no homes around and this gives the killers the privacy to dump their victims,” said Francis Karanja, one of the sand harvesters.

He said they had not seen anything unusual in the area that would make them suspect something fishy was going on.

On Saturday last week, two other bodies were retrieved from Thika river which borders Kiambu and 

Murang’a counties. Both bodies had their wrists chopped off and several other body parts missing.

The bodies are said to have started to decompose an indication they could have been in the water for some time. 

Police officers are looking for leads that can help unravel the mystery.

County Directorate of Criminal Investigations officer Daniel Kandie said they were working with other security agents to solve the puzzle.