- Team reveals they had ruled out abduction of Wambua before she went missing.
- A pastor encouraged Jennifer to go a place in forest and pray for her problem to go away. She later died there.
Image: COURTESY
Jennifer Wambua, the murdered NLC deputy communications director, had been advised by a pastor to go to a thicket in Ngong to pray for her problems to go away.
That was the day she died, police told the Star on Monday. She was a state witness in a Sh122 million corruption case.
It was the second mysterious NLC death this month. Deputy director of investigations and forensics at the commission Antipas Nyanjwa died of a heart attack, an autopsy report shows. Police want to know what triggered it.
On Monday, the prime suspect in Wambua's murder was ordered held for 14 more days.
Kiambu chief magistrate Patricia Gichohi allowed police to detain Peter Njenga, alias Sankale, 44, at Muthaiga police station. The order will be reviewed on May 10.
Meanwhile, DCI detectives told the Star a pastor advised Wambua to go for prayers in a thicket in Ngong for relief from her problems.
That's where she met her death on March 12. Investigators ruled out abduction before she went missing, though they had initially considered kidnapping.
She was found the next day in Kerarapon area in Ngong.
Wambua was sexually assaulted and strangled by bare hands, investigators said.
Forensic analysis of her mobile phone revealed a conversation between Wambua and a Machakos-based religious leader who advised her to take time alone in the forest and pray for her depression to lift.
The pastor has been questioned by police and they said he revealed he had spoken to her on the day she went away and met her death. He was among those who spoke to her on that day.
Police investigators said after it was after Wambua had finished her prayers that she met two other suspects in the murder probe.
She drank water police said they believe was laced with chemicals. It was not immediately known if Njenga gave her the water.
He is the third suspect in custody in connection with the murder.
Police said Njenga, who is a small-scale businessman in the area, has crucial evidence.
On April 8, investigators arrested a boda boda rider and a herder who were among the people spotted at the scene where the body was found.
Benjamin Saitoti and David Sempuan were presented to the Kiambu court on April 9 and April 23. The court allowed police to hold them for 10 more days.
Police are now banking on forensic analysis of the suspects’ mobile phones and DNA analysis to help unravel the murder mystery.
One of the two suspects has an active case of robbery with violence, police have revealed, but the man was not identified.
Saitoti and Sempuan walked to their village elder in Ngong area to say they had seen the woman before she was killed. They went to their elder before police were called to pick them up almost a month after the murder.
Police said the suspects told them they left Wambua talking a man who stayed with her until late, when they left.
The two said Wambua seemed depressed and sad and asked for water. The man left to buy her water from a nearby shopping centre and brought it to her, police said.
She had apparently walked to the place. It is not clear if she took a matatu to the area or walked there. The area is about 20km from the City Centre where she had been spotted earlier
She was supposed to be on a five-day leave from March 8 but showed up in the office on March 12, the day she went missing.
Wambua left all her belongings, including her handbag and mobile phone, in the car and walked away, leaving no indication of her destination.
On the day she went missing, she was dropped at work at about 7am and walked to her office at Bishop Gardens in Upper Hill with her bag and lunchbox.
About an hour later, she left the office, went to where the car was parked and placed her personal belongings there, police said Then she walked away.
(Edited by V. Graham)