Police finally trace whereabouts of missing Garissa University student's body

Police have solved the puzzle of the missing Garissa University College student who was killed in April in a terror attack.

A team investigating the incident said they have discovered the body of Risper Mutinda from Kitui County was wrongly taken by a different family and buried in Mwingi.

They have already obtained a court order to exhume Risper’s body.

Another body that has been lying at the Chiromo mortuary is the one that was supposed to have been buried in Mwingi, officials said. The team used fingerprint technology to solve the case.

Director of Criminal Investigations Ndegwa Muhoro confirmed they had accounted for all the 148 people who were killed at the Garissa University College in April.

“All the bodies of the 148 victims of the Garissa College attack have been accounted for. The one case we had was a mistake and it has since been solved,” he said.

DNA test

The mystery surrounding Risper’s case deepened after a DNA test revealed that the only body remaining at the Chiromo Mortuary was not hers.

This forced police to use fingerprints from the registrar of persons. They did the matching manually after getting the data used to obtain identification cards.

“They finally tallied after the officers did it manually. The problem was that they both shared names,” said an officer.

Police and the families involved in the identification process had difficulties identifying the bodies because they were badly damaged.

Risper’s parents have been repeatedly requesting the Government to help trace their daughter’s body.

Her father, Mr Isaac Mutisya, visited Chiromo Mortuary, Kenyatta National Hospital and the National Disaster Management officers at Nyayo House following the April 2 terrorist attack in Garissa, hoping that he could find answers to his daughter’s whereabouts in vain.