Brutally snuffed out

George Mugo and Rebeca Waithera stand near the coffin carrying the remains of Jemimah Waithera ,5, who was found dead on June 12 in a septic tank at a construction site in Pipeline estate, Nairobi. [PHOTO: JAMES WANZALA/STANDARD]

Why did someone kill our daughter? What did she do to deserve this treatment? Why didn’t the building report the case to the police, but rather decided to tell the fundis to cover the septic hole and not tell anyone?

These are some of the questions going through the minds of Rebeca Waithera and George Mugo, the parents of Jemimah Muthoni, a five-year-old nursery school pupil who used to attend Joy Junior Academy in Pipeline estate, Embakasi, Nairobi.

She had been missing for three months only for her decomposing body to be found last Friday in a septic hole at a house undergoing construction in Pipeline.

Her body was mutilated and dismembered, with the head missing, one hand and the legs from knees chopped off - an image so gruesome that it brought horror to many.

The traumatic journey started on Sunday March 8 at about 7pm. After attending church, Jemimah went to play with her younger brother but on the way, an unidentified man allegedly told her brother to leave as he (the man) took her away.

“On that material day, I left at about 4pm to go to hospital to see a doctor. After returning home at about 5pm, my daughter was still playing. I asked her elder brother to call her but he could not find Jemimah,” says a distraught Rebecca.

Since it was becoming dark, Rebecca asked her husband, George Mugo, to help look for Jemimah but after a one-hour search, he could not find her either.

“The following day, I went to Villa Police Post at Imara Daima, reported her disappearance and was assigned OB No: 26/14/03/2015. I was told that if she was found, the officers would call me,” she adds.

After four anxious days, Rebecca reported the matter at Embakasi Police Station under OB No: 32/05/04/2015.

As time went by without any sign of Jemimah, they reported the matter at Buruburu, Kayole, Industrial Area, Kilimani and Milimani police stations.

In their search, they went to Mama Ngina Children’s Home, but there was no new child admitted there. The couple asked six churches within Pipeline estate to announce the disappearance and even attached their daughter’s photo to the churches’ notice boards.

They have also incurred financial expenses in the search as they would pay between Sh500 and Sh600 per day for radio announcements, but it was all futile.

Conmen, unperturbed by the pain the parents were experiencing because their child was missing, piled on the agony. A caller using telephone number 0716466946 asked them to send airtime so that he could tell them where their daughter was.

“We reported this unknown caller to police officers at Embakasi, but the officers did not care to investigate him. They just told us to ignore him because he might be a conman from prison who wanted to play with our minds. It would have been better if the CID probed this caller to explain why he was doing that,” opines Rebecca.

Then on Friday, June 12, a female neighbour told Rebeca that there was news of a child that had been found in a septic tank at the flats under construction near the Kenya Builders Company.

Rebeca inquired further and learned that the information came from a construction worker at the site. Unbelievably, he said that they (fundis) were told by the house owner not to tell anyone about the gruesome discovery and to cover the hole so that no one saw it.

“I quickly found the place and asked to fundi to show me where the body was. He was adamant at first but when I demanded angrily, he uncovered the hole. At first, I could not see the body until I took my walking stick and tried to search the sewer. That is when I saw the dress she was wearing before she got lost. That’s how I knew she was my daughter,” recalls Rebeca.

She immediately started to wail and her screams attracted a curious crowd. She called the police, who came and retrieved the body using sticks and sacks from the sewer and took it to mortuary. Jemimah’s body was so decomposed, making it hard for the doctors to give an accurate post-mortem report.

So on her report, they wrote ‘UNCERTAIN’. Even as they buried their daughter at Lang’ata Cemetery in Nairobi on Thursday, June 18, justice had not been served. Jemimah was described as jovial, playful social and bight girl in school.

The three months of sleepless nights and endless visits to police stations and children’ homes have come to an end, albeit a sad terrifying one. Some reports say that the building had no doors but after the incident, doors were quickly put on the building to bar anyone from going in. “At least the stress and sleepless nights are no more since I found my child. I am now a bit relaxed,” says Rebeca, who thanks the fundi who informed her neighbour.

Mugo says he gets disturbed whenever he sees his daughter’s picture on the wall and when he looks at her elder brother.

Jemimah’s elder sister Joanne Njoki, 12, is also in pain after losing her sister. “I feel bad I have lost my sister, I will miss her a lot. If she were alive, we would be helping each other with house chores,” says Joanne, who was living with her grandmother in Nakuru, when she heard the news of her sister’s brutal death.

The late Jemimah’s elder brother Alex Muturi, Rebeca says, has moved on with life and he is now doing well.
Incidents of children and adults being found dead in sewers and unfinished waterlogged foundations are not new in Pipeline estate. According to a resident who requested anonymity, the plot owners might be sacrificing human beings in satanic rituals.

“Some plots stay for very long without tenants and such incidents are proof enough that something fishy is going on. Why is it that the bodies that have been found are only recovered in houses under construction?” asked the angry resident.

But another resident Bernard Asuma, blames unfinished sites.

“Pipeline is a congested estate with many children who may be tempted to play in these open, unfinished houses and then fall into such holes by accident,” says Bernard.

However, the questions that remain unanswered in this case are these: Why did the plot owner tell the fundis not to let anyone know about the incident? Was Jemimah murdered and dumped? Who is the stranger that that took away Jemimah while she was playing with her brother?