- The body was Monday evening found dumped outside the GSU Recce squad base in Ruiru. It was chopped up.
- The motive of the murder has not been established.
Image: COURTESY
The woman whose body was found chopped and stashed in a suitcase in Ruiru has been identified as a waitress who worked at a local eatery.
She was identified as Esther Wambui, 18.
The woman was identified by among others her boyfriend, who she had been living with in the area, through her clothes.
Her father arrived at Ruiru police station on Thursday to help with the investigation.
Wambui had lived in the area for only two weeks.
She dropped out of school in Form 2 and did not have a mobile phone at the time of her murder, the family and police said.
Wambui went missing on Monday.
Her hands and legs were tied, her left breast was severed. A nylon rope was tied around her neck. The body parts were wrapped in nylon and placed in a suitcase.
The suitcase was found outside the GSU Recce Squad base in Ruiru, Kiambu county.
Police said the woman was waylaid and killed as she walked to her workplace in the morning on January 17. She had worked there for less than two weeks.
On the day she died, her boyfriend had escorted her to a junction, about a kilometre away from her workplace.
Joseph Ngige told police he works at a local petrol station and had escorted her and said goodbye, hoping to see her in the evening as usual.
They both come from Nakuru and lived in a single-room house in an informal settlement in Ruiru town.
He told the police he does not know why his girlfriend was brutally killed, and her body stashed in a suitcase.
Police said the family went to Juja police station and later identified the body at the mortuary.
Detectives handling the case said they suspect the woman was confronted by her killers, who probably raped her and decided to kill her.
“We believe the messages written on her body was meant to distract investigations,” an officer aware of the matter said.
Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations in Ruiru have visited the house where the woman lived and the scene where the body was found.
The motive of the murder is yet to be known, police said.
Ruiru head of DCI Justus Ombati said the woman might have been killed elsewhere and dumped alongside the perimeter wall of the heavily guarded GSU Recce Squad station.
Such incidents are common in the region. Some are linked to love triangles and others to property disputes.
(Edited by V. Graham)