Family’s sleepless nights after CID officer goes missing

INSET: Lily Kimathi holds an old photo of her husband, James Kimathi who disappeared without a trace last year. [PHOTO: GILBERT KIMUTAI/STANDARD]

Every day when Lily Chepkirui Kimathi prays, she asks God to bring her husband home.

She starts each new day with renewed optimism that her husband James Kimathi will return to their home in Litein, Kericho County, safe and sound.

Chepkirui says the disappearance of her husband eight months ago has left her family sleepless and afraid.

Every time she hears footsteps at night, she wakes up hoping it would be her husband only to be disappointed that it was only a neighbour returning home.

“It is very hard to cope without him, he was everything to me and his children as his presence was a source of joy, which we have never know since he went missing last year,” she says.

Chepkirui, a clerk at Litein Tea Factory in Kericho, says she is yet to come to terms with how her husband, who worked as a police officer at the old CID headquarters got lost, leaving a big void in her life.

“He called to check on us on September 27, 2014 after work and we chatted for a while. That was the last time I heard from him.”

For two days he did not call. She became concerned because it was unusual for him not to call her for a day.

“I became suspicious that there could be something wrong and when I tried reaching him, his phone was off. I called a few of his neighbours on the Kilimani police line but no clears explanation was coming through,” says Chepkirui, a mother of four.

“Some of his bosses at the old CID headquarters started calling to ask about his whereabouts. Then it dawned on me that something worse than just losing a phone might have happened to my husband.”

After one week of making several phones calls to friends and relatives trying to trace him without success, she asked for leave from the factory and travelled to Nairobi where the search began.

On reaching Nairobi, she was told by the officer in charge of the old police headquarters, who identified himself as Karonei, that her husband was supposed to be off duty until October 13 from the day of his disappearance.

“I accepted the idea that he may have decided to use the period to go on holiday alone halfheartedly, since I know he would have told me so that I would not agonise over his disappearance.”

She says after the presumed period he was on leave elapsed, her husband had not returned or even called back and she embarked on a search of the city’s suburbs, where her husband used to spend time with friends during his free time.

“In the company of some officers who worked with him, we visited Kenyatta National Hospital, city mortuaries and the Kibera slum. His friends had no clue where he was.”

After exhausting all the places they suspected he might be, Chepkirui said she asked officers to try and track his phone to trace his last movements. The officers were, however, reluctant.

“It took time for the officers to yield to my request to track my husband’s phone. When they did, the results did not help in the search as the handset was traced to another officer who denied having it.”

Then the police told her that the data retrieved was wrong after the officer was questioned in private.

“I am concerned that after the Safaricom data was wrongly checked and I went back to my home in Litein, police have done nothing and the only thing they tell me when I try to check is to be patient,” she protest.

She now wants the Government to intervene and help trace her husband.

Her brother-in-law John Muriuki’s efforts to trace his brother have also been in vain.

Surprisingly, the missing officer’s salary is being deposited every month though nobody is withdrawing it.

“I have been monitoring his bank account and he continues to receive salary though he has  not withdrawn anything since he disappeared making me worried that something bad may have happened to him which police do not want us to know,” she says.

However, police say the search for the missing CID officer is ongoing though they are yet to make a breakthough.