By Amos Kareithi

Like a mother hen protecting its chick, the 34-year-old mother knocked on many government offices in search of justice and protection. But in all, no one bothers to intervene and see justice delivered. Her marriage and her children are gone.

The worst news was delivered by her son, Dennis Wachiuri, 16, who was living with the grandmother in Nyeri. His message was alarming and ambiguous.

"He said he was stranded in Embu and had bad news. He seemed not to realise the import of what he was saying. He was just a boy who had been sent to do a man’s job," Dorothy Wanja recalls.

Dorothy Wanja with complaint letters presented to police and the postmortem report during the interview. Photo: Martin Mukangu/Standard

The two met in Chuka and travelled to Ruiru where they had been told misfortune had befallen Wanjas ’s four-year-old daughter, Faith Nyawira.

They intended to see Nyawira in hospital, but this was not to be. Her former husband, Gidraf Mwangi Wachiuri, directed them to his sister’s home in Gitambaa, Ruiru.

There was a clumsy family reunion as Wanja and her estranged husband and father of their three children met. The couple had parted earlier in the year. The children were supposedly living with their father.

The mother recalls: "There was a deathly silence when I entered. Nobody wanted to discuss Nyawira’s whereabouts. My patience ran out and I demanded answers."

The truth of the tragedy started to unfold. She was informed that Nyawira had left her paternal grandmother in Mutathi-ini, Nyeri.

"Mwangi had allowed his sister, Wangare, to take Nyawira with her to Ruiru. Nyawira had been playing in her aunt’s place when she allegedly fell from the first floor. Now she was dead," recalls Wanja tearfully. And now relatives wanted Nyawira buried immediately arguing that postmortem was not necessary as it would complicate a very simple matter. After all, the baby was dead.

Wanja felt she was being stampeded into making a decision she could not comprehend.

Apparently, the husband had secretly organised a burial and asked Wanja to wait for a doctor before she could view Nyawira’s remains.

"After waiting for several hours in vain, I called my husband. He was already at Kenyatta University Mortuary at Thika Road. I was shocked when I found him brandishing a burial permit to the mortuary superintendent," Wanja says.

The mortuary superintendent, Eric Ogada says the father and some relatives persuaded him to release Nyawira’s body but he refused as the permit was forged.

"It did not have the official stamp and I could not break the law. I rejected it," Ogada told CCI.

The distraught mother demanded to view the body against the wishes of her in laws.

"There was a fight and we had to chase them away. I remember the mother grabbing and slapping a man who objected to her viewing the body. Later she was allowed to view it in presence of her husband," a worker at the mortuary told CCI.

Although documents at the mortuary indicated Nyawira died after falling, the mother was aghast on seeing the remains.

"There were fresh wounds all over her body. Some wounds and scars were from burns and not from falling. Her private parts had multiple wounds," Wanja says.

She adds: "Although I am not an expert, I realised my daughter had not died from natural causes. Somebody had sexually assaulted and killed her and now they wanted a hasty burial without a post mortem."

The revelation opened another battlefront as the child’s father opposed a postmortem be conducted and demanded his daughter be interred immediately. Wanja contracted a pathologist, Dr Odour Johansen, whose report was shocking and shattered the theory that Nyawira died of an accidental fall.

The autopsy report of January 15 graphically captures the pain and trauma Nyawira went through before she died.

"There were multiple wounds and scars on the body as follows; a round healing wound on the forehead, multiple healing wounds on the mouth, others on both cheeks, chest and back," the autopsy report reads.

Other wounds were found in the left inner thigh measuring six centimetres long and eight centimetres below the groin area. There were three burn wounds around the left knee averaging three centimetres. In total, the four-year-old girl had a combination of fresh, healing and healed wounds in 16 places ranging from her private parts, back, mouth and fingers measuring more than 50 centimetres.

"There were bruises in her private parts and her virginity had been broken. At her age we expect the hymen to have been intact and lack of it may mean she may have been defiled," the pathologist notes. She was also malnourished and was likely to have been afflicted by viral pneumonia.

Kenyatta University Thika Road Mortuary where a postmortem was conducted and revealed a four-year-old girl was defiled and brutally murdered. Police say its a domestic affair and have not arrested any suspects. Photo: Saidi Hamisi

The immediate cause of death was cited as severe anaemia caused by multiple wounds, which led to chronic bleeding.

Dr Johansen described the incident as very serious and unfortunate. "I examined the body and in my opinion the child had been tortured and sexually abused repeatedly," Johansen said. Her last moments must have been full of unending pain and loneliness.

Emboldened by the findings, Wanja thought she had won the battle but she was wrong. Her in laws ostracised her with warnings that she would shoulder Nyawira’s burial costs alone.

"I was furious and frustrated. I informed my father, Hezekiah Nyaga in Chuka," Wanja says.

However Nyaga swore he would not to allow his granddaughter to be interred in his farm.

"After realising Nyawira had not died from a disease or accident, I forbade Wanja from burying her. I wanted to know the truth. I assisted her to raise the Sh10, 000 needed to pay the pathologist," Nyaga told CCI.

Rejected by her kinsmen, Wanja reported to Ruiru Police Station but officers advised her to pursue dialogue with her husband.

She could not go to Nyeri where the husband hails from neither could Mwangi be welcome in Embu, Wanja’s home. The two families chose a neutral ground to hammer a peace deal.

"On December 24, last year, we met at an open ground in Kerugoya town. Each side brought three delegates. We sat under a tree and decided that Nyawira had to be buried. We resolved that Mwangi organise for the burial and involve the two sides," Nyaga says.

After the Kerugoya declaration, the war drums subsided a little but not for long. Plagued by the deafening silence from her husband who was now living in Timau, Wanja called him to enquire about the burial arrangements.

Mwangi was noncommittal. He said he was still looking for money even as Nyawira’s remains remained at Kenyatta University Mortuary. When CCI called Mwangi, he acknowledged Nyawira as his daughter but was very economical with words and facts.

"It is true I am the father. This is a very long story. My phone battery is low," he said before cutting off communication.

We called him a day later. "Why are you bothering me. Just enquire from the police. I have nothing to tell you," an angry Mwangi answered. His mother, Bertha Mwihaki Wachiuri, too sounded helpless: "I don’t know who killed my granddaughter or when she will be buried. The responsibility lies with the father. What else can I do?"

Asked whether she knew who had killed Nyawira and how she had ended up in Ruiru, Mwihaki said she did not understand what we were asking. She also declined to disclose Wangare’s whereabouts.

CCI could not trace Richard Kago Kamau and Catherine Wangare Kamau who had taken the body to the mortuary on December 12 as the number they had provided in the mortuary form could not go through.

At Ruiru Police Station the Officer Commanding Station, Simon Nyambochwa Kegori described the crisis as a domestic matter.

"This is a family issue. The members seem sharply divided and cannot agree on who should take the responsibility. They have been squabbling about it for a long time," the OCS told CCI.

But when asked whether the police had ever arrested any suspects or those who took the child to the mortuary, he beat a hasty retreat saying the matter was sensitive and he could not comment further.

Thika OCPD Patrick Mwakio said: "I cannot recall that specific case. You know we deal with so many cases."

Wanja has gone to Criminal Investigations Department and filed a complaint over what she perceives as laxity by the police to investigate and arrest the killers. Chief Inspector Grace Ndirangu vide general complains Ref 6/11/763 filed on July 1 and forwarded to the CID Thika detailing Wanja’s tribulations.

Six months after she died in mysterious circumstances, Nyawira remains un-mourned,

unloved and un-avenged. Her mother fears that the killers may never face justice.