• Shantel's mother, Ngina, said her daughter was jovial, innocent and had no problems with neighbours.
• Ngina said she wasn't in conflict with anyone to warrant the killing of her daughter.
Image: GEORGE OWITI
Christine Ngina has yet to come to terms with the murder of her daughter, eight-year-old Shantel Nzambi.
She says she was so disturbed to find her missing from the house when she returned home from work that she couldn’t do anything.
Shantel went missing in Kitengela town, Kajiado, last Saturday before her body was found 48 hours later in a trench. Ngina says she has yet to believe that her lovely daughter is gone forever.
“My daughter might have been kidnapped from 2pm onwards on Saturday and not morning hours because when I returned home from work, I never found her,” Ngina said on Wednesday.
She spoke to reporters at her house on Kichinjio estate, Kitengela town. Concerned about her second-born child's whereabouts, she searched for her until Monday when she got the bad news of her death. Shantel's body was dumped at Orata, barely a kilometre from their house.
“When I got to the house, I didn’t find Shantel. So, I asked one of her friends whether she had seen her. The girl said she didn’t know where my daughter was,” she recalled.
“I returned to my house, waited for some time and again went out to look for my daughter. I got out of the apartment I live in and again asked her other friends who told me Shantel had gone to one of her friend’s, Sharon mother’s, house not far from ours.”
Image: GEORGE OWITI
Sharon’s mother, according to multiple sources, is a police officer attached to the Kitengela police station.
"I went back to the house but after a short while got out again and requested the friends to take me to Sharon's place. One of them did."
Ngina said they found children playing outside the apartment where Sharon lives with her parents.
“We asked them whether Shantel had gone to Sharon’s parents’ house and they said she did. They showed me the house but said Sharon and her siblings were not around, they had left for their aunt’s home in Kiambu county.
"I asked them about my daughter’s whereabouts and they told me she had accompanied Sharon and her siblings to their aunts place. I returned to my house and later went back to Sharon’s parents' house. Asked the children whether they had returned but they said no. I asked them where Sharon’s mother was and they said she was at work.
“I asked whether there was someone at Sharon’s place but they said nobody was in. The door was closed,” Ngina said.
She later received a phone call on a private number, with the caller enquiring whether she was Sharon’s mother. She said the caller asked her the same question three times even after she said she wasn’t.
“I maintained I wasn’t Sharon’s mother. After that the person called again asking me whether I was Shantel’s mother, I said yes. She asked me whether I knew where she was and I said I had been looking for her. Then she told me she had my daughter," Ngina said.
She said the caller demanded a Sh300,000 ransom to release her. The caller, according to Ngina, said she was with the child in Kiambu county. The caller then hang up as soon as Ngina asked how her daughter got to Kiambu.
“I have told you that I am the one with her and I am in Kiambu. Don’t worry, what you got to do is send me Sh300,000 and I will bring her to you. Then the person hang up,” Ngina narrated.
The phone call prompted Ngina to look for Sharon’s mother, the said cop. She returned to their house but found it closed. She asked for the caretaker who gave her Sharon’s mother’s phone contact.
“I called Sharon’s mother and explained to her that someone had called me saying she was holding my child but the first time she called she had asked me whether I was Sharon’s mother,” Ngina said.
“I am Shantel’s mother, I wanted to confirm whether Shantel is with Sharon.”
Image: GEORGE OWITI
Ngina said she was shocked when Sharon’s mother told her that the daughter had gone to visit her sister, their aunt in Kiambu. The officer confirmed with her sister on the phone that Shantel wasn’t with Sharon.
“After that I called my elder sister and explained to her, then I reported the matter to Kitengela police station.”
The person continued calling that Saturday evening through Sunday and Monday demanding a ransom until Ngina stopped receiving the calls. She said the caller made the last call on Monday at around 8.47am.
“The person was calling daily asking whether I had got the money. I told her to wait I look for the money so that I get back my daughter. He hang up and from Monday 8.47am, I received no call.”
Ngina said her child’s body was discovered shortly after the last phone call. A neighbour informed them that a child’s body had been found in a trench within the neighbourhood. The neighbour had been aware of Shantel's disappearance.
Ngina received over 300 missed calls from the person who was demanding the ransom between Saturday when the child went missing and Monday when the body was discovered, he elder sister Hilda said.
Hilda said her niece had seemingly taken 10am tea but never took lunch, an indication that she went missing in the afternoon on Saturday. Ngina had prepared tea and lunch for her daughter before leaving for work at an EPZ factory in Athi River. When she came back, the lunch was intact, an indication Shantel only took the tea.
Hilda said they wondered how the girl was tricked by her kidnappers as she never talked to strangers.
“We don’t know whether she was held on her hands or her kidnappers used charms to confuse her... We don’t know whether her kidnappers were known to her.”
Image: GEORGE OWITI
DCI detectives probing her disappearance and eventual murder on Wednesday arrested a boda boda operator about 200 metres from the scene where the body was dumped.
The suspect wore a green reflector jacket and helmet during his arrest. He was waiting for clients at Orata stage where he operates.
It is believed that Shantel was murdered in a case of mistaken identity. Were the kidnappers targeting Sharon but lured the wrong prey? And if so, why? These are some of the questions the investigators will have to puzzle out even as they also ensure Sharon's safety.
Detectives hinted that the arrested suspect’s phone might had been the one used to call Ngina.
Those who witnessed the body being removed by police from the trench said the girl's naked body was wrapped in a blue bed sheet.
“The girl’s body was swollen with blood oozing from her eyes. She might have been defiled before she was killed,” said an eyewitness.
Meanwhile, Ngina can only hope that justice will be served for her daughter—an innocent, hardworking, jovial and bright schoolgirl.
She said she couldn’t remember having problems with anyone to warrant her daughter's murder.
Ngina urged authorities to seriously take up the matter. Those behind the crime should be brought to book in line with the law. She prays that no stone will be too heavy to be turned by the criminal justice system.