South B woman could have strangled mother to death before calling police

The potraits of Judith Wanjiku and her daughter Catherine Nyaguthii during their funeral service in Kerugoya, Kirinyaga County, on Wednesday. Wanjiku and Nyaguthii were found dead in their house in South B, Nairobi. [Munene Kamau, Standard]

The mysterious woman who called police in the South B mother and daughter murder case has been identified. 

Police investigations have established that the caller was Catherine Nyaguthii, the 47-year-old daughter of retired Treasury staff Judy Wanjiku Mwai. 

Wanjiku and Nyaguthii were found dead in their South B home on the morning of September 23 by a relative who called the police. 

Their bodies were in different bedrooms. 

Initially, police thought the mother and daughter could have been killed. 

But sources told Sunday Standard that a relative of the murdered women had told the police that the voice in an audio conversation handed to DCI investigators was that of her niece Nyaguthii. 

The audio of the conversation between a woman and a police officer based at the Nairobi Area Police Command Centre was presented to the DCI investigators for analysis. 

From the audio, the caller, believed to be a woman from the voice, told the police on the toll free number 112 that she had killed. 

”Nimeua. Sasa kujeni muniue (I have killed. Now come and kill me),“ the caller said in the one minute and 10 seconds sound clip made from Wanjiku’s phone. 

With the confirmation that the caller was indeed Nyaguthii, investigators are now a step away from confirming the theory that she killed her mother before she committed suicide. 

The motive is however yet to be established. 

At the same time, the investigators are hoping that a white tea cup handed over to the Government chemist for examination will yield clues as to what happened between the nights of September 21 and 22 when the murder and suicide are believed to have happened. 

Police have asked the Government chemist to confirm the contents of the cup, which is believed to have contained poison that Nyaguthii may have consumed after killing her mother. 

They also want an analysis on blood stains found on the cup. The results of the contents of the cup, paired with toxicological results of food samples taken from Nyaguthii’s intestines, are expected to yield clues into the murder. Police have also reconstructed the last moments of mother and daughter through data analysis of their cellphones and statements recorded by security guards. 

Ailing father

The officer manning the police control room and who has been identified through the duty rooster has also recorded statements with the police. 

A nurse at a city hospital who Nyaguthii last spoke to on the night of September 22 has also been questioned by Makadara DCI officers. 

The nurse, according to sources, told the police that the conversation with Nyaguthii was about how she wanted her ailing father taken care of in hospital. The two spoke for close to 13 minutes on the night of September 22 hours before Nyaguthii’s lifeless body was found.

A second woman, a banker relative of the dead women who discovered the bodies, has also recorded statements with the police.

She told the police that she last spoke to the sister (Wanjiku) on the night of September 21 at around 9.45pm. 

On that night, Wanjiku spoke to about five people, among them her sister, a taxi driver and an old family friend. 

Call data show that her (Wanjiku’s) phone was in communication up to around 9.53pm. 

A postmortem examination on Wanjiku’s body confirmed that she was strangled to death. 

Postmortem results of Nyaguthi are yet to be released.