Peris Wambui found her sister Judith Wanjiku (pictured) in her bedroom soaked in her own blood, lifeless, with her neck tied with a sisal rope, while in the adjacent bedroom, her daughter was lying on the floor dead/COURTESY
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 25 – An autopsy was on Wednesday carried out on the bodies of ex-treasury official Judith Wanjiku, 73, and her 47-year-old daughter Catherine Nyaguthie, who were found dead inside their Golden estate home in South B, Nairobi.
Their bodies were found by a relative at 7 pm on Monday. Police are seeking clues on when the two were killed, the perpetrators and the motive.
Industrial Area police station Deputy Sub-County Commander Purity Muthoni said police were pursuing leads that will help them pin down the driver of a Toyota Prado, that dropped off the two at their home on Saturday at 2 am.
“We really want to know who the driver was,” she said without divulging more details.
Notably, the night guard said he did not register the car’s number plate, which was used by the mother and daughter twice on Saturday night. It first brought them back home at midnight before they left shortly afterwards and returned at 2 am.
That was the last time they were seen alive.
The postmortem exercise, held at the Chiromo Funeral Parlour, started at 12pm, with detectives hoping to know when the two died through the Post-mortem interval (PMI) – the time that elapsed since a person has died- and what caused their death.
“It is a complex case that needs a meticulous approach,” a senior detective privy to the ongoing investigations told Capital FM News on Wednesday.
The detective, who did not want to be mentioned, said that they want to know whether there were any injuries inflicted on the bodies of the victims, other than the strangulation marks on their neck.
Wanjiku was found with a sisal rope on her neck, which had been tied on her bed. She had bled from her nose and mouth.
“Her body was soaked in blood. We want to know what caused the bleeding even as we hope to get crucial leads that will lead to those involved,” the detective said.
Her daughter was lying on her belly, inside her bedroom, with a small sisal rope left beside her body. Preliminary investigations reveal that “there was a struggle” before she was killed.
READ: Police seek telephone data in probe to uncover the killers of ex-treasury official in South B
Already, several people among them security guards manning the estate on the incident night and relatives, have since recorded statements.
Their death remains a puzzle that might only be unraveled once police get their phone data from the communication service providers, identify the registration of the Toyota Prado that they used on Saturday night and with the outcome of the autopsy.
Detectives have since dusted the residence, hoping to get fingerprints and other leads.
“It is a unique case that has never happened around this area again,” Makadara CID boss Henry Kiambati told journalists on Tuesday after recording statements from relatives.
“We are trying to piece the information together so that we can get those who committed the incident.”
Such cases have been on the rise over the last two years according to police statistics.
According to the 2018 National Annual Crime Report, cases of homicide increased last year by 3 per cent, in a year that saw 88,268 cases of crime reported to police across the country.
The report by the National Police Service indicates that there were 2,856 cases of homicide in 2018, compared to 2,774 in 2017.
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