• A boda boda rider has been arrested for questioning in connection with the kidnap and murder of Shantel
• The police say the rider took from and made several calls to the main suspect.
Image: Handout
Detectives investigating the murder of Shantel Nzambi in Kitengela are pursuing leads that the killer gang could have mistaken her for the daughter of a police officer.
The two girls lived in the same apartment block in Kitengela and police believe Shantel may have been the wrong target.
The police officer at the gender desk at the Kitengela police station recorded a second statement on Wednesday as detectives seek to establish the identity and motive of the killers.
A boda boda rider has been arrested for questioning in connection with the kidnap and murder of Shantel. She was eight years old.
The police say the rider took and made several calls to the main suspect. They suspect he played a key role in the killing of the girl.
Shantel's body was found in Orata area by passersby two days after she went missing.
The body of the Grade 2 pupil at a private school in Kitengela was stuffed in a sack and abandoned beside a busy road.
Police are combing phone databases for the identity of the main suspect, a woman who had allegedly used an unregistered mobile phone line to get ransom cash and then discarded the line.
The woman and a boda boda rider are suspected of being part of the murder plot.
Isinya Directorate of Criminal Investigations boss Jeremiah Ndubai said detectives are following crucial leads that will assist them to arrest the suspects. “The motive will be known soon,” he said.
He said the child’s mother received two phone calls asking for a ransom of Sh300,000.
Shantel’s parents said she disappeared on May 29 and the matter was reported to the police. The body was discovered on May 31.
Her mother Christine Ngina said the child left the house and was thought to be within the compound playing with other children.
“However, I was shocked to learn that she had not returned by evening,” Ngina said.
She said she received a phone call from a private number asking her if she was Sharon's mother. Sharon was the friend Shantel had gone to play with in an adjacent apartment, Ngina said.
She said the caller later told her that she was with her daughter in Kiambu county and demanded a Sh300,000 ransom.
The caller left up to 50 missed calls on Ngina’s phone. Police said the girl may have given her kidnappers the mother’s mobile number.
Investigations have shown that after Shantel failed to find Sharon, she started playing with another girl. A woman who has yet to be identified then called her pretending that she was enquiring about a vacant house in the apartment. The girl went missing thereafter.