- But Nderi says he is being framed.
- The reports, he said, have put his life in danger and he is afraid residents may mobilise and kill him.
Image: Ndichu Wainaina
A man connected to a spate of murders in Ol Joro Orok by the DCI is scared residents will gang up against him and kill him.
A tweet posted on the DCI official account on Monday last week indicated that detectives had arrested Dishon Muturi Nderi, 27, as a prime suspect in the murder of a woman and her child at Ol Joro Orok in Nyandarua on the night of April 22.
The tweet further indicated that Muturi was identified in an identification parade by a survivor of one of the attacks.
“His pursuit and subsequent arrest followed numerous reported cases of murder at Ol Joro Orok. Placed in custody as pursuit of possible accomplices continues,” the tweet reads.
But Nderi says he is being framed. The reports, he said, have put his life in danger and he is afraid residents may mobilise and kill him.
“I call upon the government to give me security. I also call on human rights organisations to come to my aid as I am in great danger. The DCI tweet and media reports are untrue. They are saying I am in custody yet the residents are seeing me around,” he told the Star at Ol Joro Orok Township on Sunday evening.
The woman and child he is accused of killing were murdered on the night of April 22 in Chekaleri village.
A criminal or criminals tunnelled through a wall to enter the house of Eunice Muthoni Ndung’u, 30, and killed her together with her five-year-old daughter.
A month earlier, Alice Wanjiru, 23, had been killed in a similar manner in the same locality.
The DCI is connecting Nderi to these crimes.
The father of two, one of them living with disability, says his troubles began in December last year after a woman was murdered inNyakariang’a village.
Mary Nyambura Macharia, popularly known as Mama Macharia, was killed in the evening of December 17.
It happened that earlier the same day Nderi’s phone had allegedly been used to threaten Mama Macharia, who was his employer, and she reported the matter at Ol Joro Orok police station.
On December 23, DCI officers from Ol Joro Orok picked Nderi from his place of work at a local flower farm as investigations into the murder began.
Nderi says he never made the threatening call. He says a friend and colleague at the flower farm had asked to use his phone to call “his wife".
Since December, Nderi said, he has been reporting to Ol Joro Orok police station every fortnight, until April 24 when he was locked up for a night and informed he was suspected of involvement in the murder of Alice Wanjiru.
Nderi said he knew Wanjiru as she was married to his neighbour and they were from the same village. He also used to buy livestock feed and farm inputs from an agrovet shop where she worked.
He said the girl who reportedly identified him knows him well as they are from same locality. Nderi wonders why he was not accused of the crime when he participated in burial preparations.
Nderi said the DCI are connecting him to crimes he knows nothing about. He accused the investigating officers of hitting him with a metal rod on the knees as they questioned him.
“I am not opposed to investigation. I want it to be expedited so I get cleared because I have never even thought of killing a person. My reputation has also been dented by these accusations,” Nderi said.
Nderi said last Thursday, accompanied by some family members, he sought audience with the Nyandarua county police commander on the matter.
The county police chief, Gideon Ngumi, on Monday morning told the Star that he had no comment on the matter.
Edited by Josephine M. Mayuya