It is a botched administration of justice while in the grave for the late Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology (JKUAT) student the late Rita Waeni after all suspects arrested in connection to her macabre killing were released from police custody for lack of proof against them.
Waeni was murdered in mid-January this year at a short-stay rental apartment (Airbnb) along TRM Drive in Kasarani, Nairobi – one of at least 16 femicide incidents recorded in Kenya in January.
Her body parts were dumped in a dustbin and her head days later, inside a dam on the outskirts of the city.
The last group of suspects – Kelvin Mutiso, Eugene Omondi and Brian Kinoti – was freed Monday by Makadara Chief Magistrate Tito Gesora.
The court’s decision came after the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP) told the court that the probe by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) did not link the three to the murder.
The three were arrested alongside Airbnb owner Priscila Maina after they were found near the crime scene.
Earlier, Corporal Philip Kilonzo had told Senior Principal Magistrate Justus Kituku that Mutiso and Omondi were not residents of the apartment where the offence was committed but that the DCI wanted to establish the reason for their visit at the time Waeni was killed.
“The investigating team has also confirmed that (Omondi) is a student of JKUAT … investigators are yet to establish the coincidence,” said Corporal Kilonzo, who is in the homicide unit.
Only Kinoti has a house on the third floor of the building named Greenhouse Apartments.
Kituku released Maina on January 26, 2024, after Corporal Kilonzo made the request, saying she needed to report to investigators at the DCI headquarters twice a week.
The DCI and the ODPP intend to make her the star witness in the case should Waeni’s killer be arrested.
The three men were initially held at the Kasarani Police Station and later transferred to Muthaiga after the DCI’s Homicides Unit took over the investigation.
