Please help, there's a serial killer targeting our school girls, Molo residents plead

Molo, Kenya: The recent wave of killings in Molo town has left residents reeling in shock. Reports of missing persons have been reported with little hope forthcoming concerning their whereabouts.

A week after bodies of three school girls who had disappeared three weeks ago were recovered, no suspect has been arrested so far. Residents are now living in fear that a serial killer could be on the prowl as two more girls have reportedly gone missing in circumstances similar to the first incident.

The girls were aged 14. Two were Form One students, while the other was a Standard Eight pupil at a local primary school.

Hordyline Morara, a Kenya Certificate of Primary Education candidate at Mona Primary school is suspected to have been lured to her death trap along River Molo on June 13, on her way to school by her killer, who according to relatives and residents allegedly defiled and murdered her.

Similar circumstances

Locals discovered her body last week after her uniform and lunch box were found few metres away from where her body lay. Three days earlier, the body of Naomi Nyarangi, who had also disappeared while going to school, was found metres from where Morara’s body lay.

Naomi was a Form One student at Moto Day Secondary School. Their bodies were recovered by Tayari villagers  searching for a 14-year-old Mary Njeri who went missing in similar circumstances on June 27 while on her way to Moto Day Secondary.

It was until Monday when locals found her decomposing body downstream, with a sock and tie plugged in her mouth, suggesting she may have been suffocated to death by her killer(s). A shoe and her underpants were placed on her chest, which provides circumstantial evidence that she may have been assailed before her death.

The murders have shocked Tayari and Kapsita villagers, who term the crimes as excessively violent and of unimaginable injustice.

Naomi’s forehead had a deep knife wound, with her underwear missing. Her school tie was evidently used to strangulate her. Her school bag was discovered at the river bank a few meters away from her body.

All the youngsters are believed to have been strangled after going through untold suffering in the hands of unknown criminals believed to be still roaming free in the area.

At Moto Primary school, another Standard Seven pupil went missing after attending a church service in Molo town on Sunday last week. A team of Kenya Red Cross and the villagers are searching for her in nearby bushes and river banks. “The lunch box my granddaughter had is still at the scene alongside her uniform. Police only collected her remains,” a sobbing Milka Nyanoti, her grandmother, told The Standard on Sunday.

She says her granddaughter’s body was discovered two weeks after extensive search coordinated by village elders and blamed the police for laxity.

But Molo Sub-County Deputy County Commissioner Julius Kavita dismissed accusations leveled against his officers and urged the public to maintain calm and allow investigators to conclude their assignments.

Promising pupil

Mona Primary School Head teacher, Paul Njenga described Morara as hardworking and a promising pupil and appealed to the Government to speed up investigations and bring the criminals to book.

Morara had topped the class last month, earning her a trophy from a local Member of County Assembly but she could not turn up to collect it on the prize-giving day. “The candidate who scooped second position collected her trophy. It is painful and sad. We later realised that Morara had been murdered long before the function,” said Njenga.

At Tayari, when Mary failed to return home after school, her mother, Jane Wangoi had unfortunately sold the last of the family’s stock of sheep to settle her school fees balance, hoping that she would succeed and support her family.

“Her father died recently. I had to shoulder the responsibility. I am jobless and left with nothing. If the Government ignores my pleas, it would be the end of the road,” said the mother of five as streams of tears rolled down her cheeks.

Juicy Moraa, Naomi’s mother alleged that children crossing a footbridge across Molo River encountered a suspicious man pretending to be communicating to somebody on his cell phone but disappeared soon as they approached. She said her daughter was trailing the other children from a distance but she never reached school on that day.

Her daughter’s disappearance was announced across Molo schools as parents staged attempts to locate the innocent souls with the three parents reporting the incidences at Molo Police Station.

Burial arrangements in the three families kicked off immediately the bodies were discovered with guardians and parents demanding for security reshuffle in Molo Sub-County.

“Residents are blaming the police for laxity. I urge everybody to be calm and support the police carry out investigations,” said Kavita.

A mob slaughtered and set on fire a suspect recently after pupils saw him descending from a cave into the river.

A pair of condoms, two needles and pepper in powder form was retrieved from a small back bag he was carrying. It later emerged that the suspect was 18-year-old Francis Ruriga, a Form Four candidate at Turi Secondary School.

Doris Wairimu, the school’s Principal, confirmed the deceased was her student . She, however, said linking the boy to the unexplained murders would be premature and urged aggrieved parties to give room to investigators to unravel what transpired.

“It is true the student was on and off school, after other students reported back from half term he never turned up until today when I was called to Molo District Hospital Mortuary to identify the body”, explained Wairimu.

But a group of youth who claimed to have interrogated the boy prior to his death alleged to have confessed committing a series of sex crimes, assaults and murders against adults and children.

At river Munju, a body of a 50-year-old man who went missing on Sunday was found with injuries on his neck and his clothes dumped near the scene.

Although locals allege three men have been murdered in similar circumstances, Molo OCPD Jacob Leskinwa says they have not nabbed the killers, but investigations were on going. “We have arrested any suspect but investigations are ongoing,” he said. Lesikinwa added that they had intensified patrols in the area with a view of curbing the incidences and that he was positive they will get the killers. “It does not matter how long it will take but we will get them,” he said.

However, residents led by David Korir, a businessman said the state of security in the town and its environs had deteriorated and demanded an explanation from the Government.

He said cases of people being killed and their bodies dumped is on the increase and blamed security agencies of doing little to contain the situation.