NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 5 – What is clear is that 6-year-old Beverly Mumo died as a result of sustained torture and not pneumonia or COVID-19 disease as suspected earlier.
An autopsy report seen by Capital FM News shows that she had lost too much blood at the time of her death.
She did not live long but for the few years, Beverly saw it all; she was at the centre of a protracted court battle in which she was being tossed between her separated parents more than she got to play like a baby she was.
Her elder brother who has since been rescued from falling into a similar fate by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations homicide detectives has not had a smooth ride either.
DCI detectives have since launched investigations into Beverly’s death.
“We are certain the girl was killed,” a senior detective privy to the investigations said.
Detectives said the investigations are focused on the role the girl’s father, stepmother, stepsister, a nephew to his father, and a house help played, if any, on the murder.
Detectives are particularly keen to establish who and how the wounds on Beverly’s body were inflicted. They were also seeking to establish if she was failed by the children’s department under whose care she was placed.
-The love story of husband and wife now turned sour-
Their parents Robinson Musyoki and Naomi Kiamba became husband and wife in 2010 through a church wedding.
The following year in 2011, the couple was blessed with a baby boy.
Three years later in 2014, the family flower, a daughter, was born and she was named Beverly.
The seeds of disharmony, however, according to multiple sources including relatives were ‘planted’ in 2011, just a year into the marriage.
“They started wrangles and it is like the matter was never conclusively addressed,” a relative who sought anonymity told Capital News, without elaborating on the actual issues that threatened to separate the couple.
But Kiamba, who spoke to Capital FM News, attributed the initial wrangles to “lack of financial support.”
Things were so bad, she said, “that I went for an interview while I was heavily pregnant for my second born in July 2013.”
“I really wanted to get a job, get back to school, and further my education,” she said.
After years of struggle and “near-depression”, it all ended in July 2017 after Musyoki and Kiamba separated, in what marked the beginning of a tedious children custodial battle at the Milimani Court.
It is marked as case Number 972/2017.
Just before the separation, Kiamba who is now a gospel artist, had attempted to commit suicide.
“I was confused, and I did not know what to do. Everything around me was not adding up,” she narrated the complicated situation that had undertones of the ‘dark world’.
In the first round, the court ruled that the mother should take custody of the children- but be allowing the father to have them every weekend.
This arrangement went well until March 2018.
“Their father failed to come for them and even indicated he was no longer interested to see them,” Kiamba told Capital FM News.
“It remained like that until October 2019, when he returned to the Children’s court.”
According to the court documents, Musyoki, pleaded with the court to grant him custody during the school holidays.
And on October 29, a Magistrate’s Court granted conditional custody; he would then stay with his children between October 29 and December 5, 2019.
That was the last time Kiamba saw her daughter alive.
“She was crying alongside her brother. They did not want to leave me,” she recalled of the fateful day.
A mother’s instincts, she said “told me something was going to be wrong.”
On December 4, 2019, Kiamba sent a text message to her ex-husband, to remind him he had only 24 hours remaining, for him to stay with the children.
But the ex-husband said he intended to take their son for circumcision, which according to his testimonials in court happened on December 15, last year.
Infuriated with her former husband’s actions, Kiamba returned to court, and a warrant of arrest was issued on January 16, 2020, after Musyoki failed to “produce the children in court” as directed.
From the Industrial Police Station in Nairobi to Mlolongo and Emali in Makueni, the warrant of arrest was not effected.
“I pleaded with the police and did everything they asked, but nothing happened,” she said.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations has equally raised concerns over how the matter was handled by the police in those areas.
After months of hide and seek, and with the COVID-19 pandemic that slowed down court activities, everything came to a halt until August 24, the day Mumo was declared dead on arrival at Mater hospital in Nairobi.
For nearly a year, Kiamba never set her eyes on her children and when she did, Mumo was lying lifeless at the Montezuma Monalisa Funeral Home.
“I received a call from him (the ex-husband) at 10 pm. I was in my rental house in Fedha estate. I could tell that his voice was shaky,” Kiamba said. “He said Beverly was dead.”
-Inside the Morgue and the body marks –
Kiamba was taken to the mortuary on the night of August 24.
After push and pull over the operating hours, she gained access alongside her ex-husband whom she found camping outside the gate of the facility located along Mbagathi road.
“God gave me courage. All this time I was very calm, and I just wanted to see my daughter. I wanted to confirm that she was the one,” she said.
“The first thing I noticed was her shaved hair. She had beautiful hair when I handed her over to her father,” she narrated.
But as she was screening through her body, she noticed something; “I was looking for her birthmark at her left ear when I saw a huge scar on the neck. It was red.”
“I cried my heart out when the trolley carrying her body was pushed back. At this point, I knew she was dead, but I also knew something was not adding up,” she said.
It is with the uncertainties that she reached out to the DCI Homicide unit, hoping to seek answers on the circumstances that led to her daughter’s death.
On August 24, Musyoki told police that Beverly woke up, complained of chest pain, she was given some medication that was acquired from a Chemist in Syokimau, but then the condition worsened later in the day.
She was declared dead on arrival at Mater hospital.
-Autopsy report raises eyebrows-
The autopsy was conducted on September 2 by four pathologists led by Dr. Johansen Odour.
Others are Dr. Edwin Walong, Dr. Waithera Mbau, and Dr Charles Muturi.
“Main findings at autopsy were recent and old injuries distributed on all regions and characteristics of physical abuse,” a summary of the autopsy report states.
The report, seen by Capital FM News further indicates “There are hemorrhagic joint effusions consistent with congestive cardiac failure.”
Also established was “severe anemia secondary to chronic blood loss, multiple blunt force traumatic injuries.”
According to the report, the manner of death was “non-accidental pediatric injuries, consistent with pediatric abuse (homicide).”
The Director of Criminal Investigations George Kinoti has committed to ensure justice is served but even as he pursues this case, he is concerned about what has become a trend in the urban centres.
“Children are suffering behind the walls of these beautiful apartments. It is sad,” he told Capital FM News, vowing to ensure justice is delivered, “We do not want to lose even a single child because of family wrangles.”
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