Residents of Ndaluni village in Kitui County are trying to come to terms with the shocking revelation that their neighbour has lived with the corpses of his wife and child for three years.
The man, Kitu Munyoki, was yesterday arrested by the police and locked up. It is suspected that the two died at different times, but the husband chose to “store” the bodies claiming that they would resurrect after seven years. He told the police that the child died in 2013 while his wife died in early 2014.
When we visited Munyoki at Migwani police station where he is being held, he was composed and answered questions without showing any emotions.
“I was following instructions from my late wife that I should not bury her but wait for seven years as she would resurrect. If it was you who was given such instructions, what would you have done?” he asked.
The macabre discovery was made on Friday when Munyoki’s mother-in-law, Pauline Ndunge, travelled from her Tala home in Machakos County to the village to find out the whereabouts of his daughter.
Ndunge said she communicated with her daughter last in 2013 when she visited the family soon after she had given birth. Since then, all efforts to find out how she was doing were thwarted by Munyoki.
“Whenever I called him and demanded to speak to her, he would claim she had refused to talk to me. He would then disconnect the call,” Ndunge said.
On Friday, she called him and he disconnected the call. That irked the mother of 10 and she decided to travel to his home. She first went to Munyoki’s mother’s homestead and the two women visited the man at his home.
On inquiring about the whereabouts of Ndila, Munyoki’s wife, the man urged them to follow him to one of his dilapidated houses which has served as makeshift mortuary. “He opened the door, walked straight in and without flinching, dusted the body of my daughter on the face. He then said, ‘look, here she is, you can talk to her’,” Ndunge said.
At another corner lay the body of the child which was also well preserved. Munyoki and Ndila had been married for 11 years.
It is then that the two women, who were on the verge of fainting, informed the area chief who then called the police from Migwani. The officers collected the bodies and took them to Migwani Sub-county Hospital Mortuary.
But more shock awaited Ndunge, Ndila’s mother, when she went to the mortuary to see the two bodies yesterday. “On coming out he (Munyoki) asked me what I had discussed with my daughter. He then demanded I buy him food. Is he normal?” wondered Ndunge.
The mortuary attendants were surprised that the man could “expertly” preserve the two bodies for three years.
“This one has beaten us in the game,” said one mortuary attendant.
At Munyoki’s home yesterday, neighbours told of a recluse man who kept to himself and never interacted with others.
Hardworking man
“He is a loner but very hardworking man. If you gave him a job, he would complete it within no time,” said Kyome Location Chief Grace Muli who knew Munyoki for years.
At the dilapidated house where Munyoki stayed with his son, a sack full of twigs locally known as Mutaa and a bird’s nest hang on the roof among other weird paraphernalia.
Ndunge is convinced it is Satanism. “This is evil and satanic. I have lived in many parts of this country and I have never seen such madness.”
Munyoki’s mother, Mary Mwalale, said whenever she asked him about his wife, he would claim she had travelled to her rural home in Tala.
“If I insisted, he would get annoyed and ask me what my problem was yet his family was okay. I would leave him alone,” Mwalale said.
She told of how Munyoki and his elder son would threaten to beat her up if she dared go anywhere closer to the shack where the two bodies were stored.
“At one time, his son threatened to beat me up asking why I was pestering them,” she said.
The sad plot thickened three days ago when Munyoki forcibly circumcised his 15-year old son, Kimanzi, using crude weapons, leaving his private organs swollen with loose, rotting hanging skin. The boy is admitted at Migwani Sub-county Hospital where doctors said he is stable. The boy, who has never been to school, appeared to have been brainwashed by his father as he would become angry whenever asked questions.
“He told me not to worry about my mother and the child as they were on a journey and would be back,” he said. The boy dons traditional bracelets on the wrists and neck which he claimed were given to him by god. Such bracelets were also found on his mother’s body.
“Don’t touch. God doesn’t want them touched,” Kimanzi fumed when this writer tried to touch the bracelets. Police at Migwani have said they would ask the court tomorrow to grant them more time to investigate the bizarre occurrence.
