The family of Rita Waeni, the 20-year-old university student whose dismembered body was discovered earlier this month, has confirmed that the head found in a dam in Kiambaa belongs to their daughter.
The identification process took place on Wednesday as the family examined the forehead, hair, and teeth of the severed head. Government pathologist Johansen Oduor conducted a postmortem examination on the recovered head, and his findings are expected to be released later in the day.
Homicide investigators from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) took charge of the murder investigation on Tuesday to conduct a forensic analysis of the head, aiming to establish the victim’s identity.
Rita Waeni’s dismembered body was initially found at an apartment in Roysambu on January 14 after she was reported missing, sending shockwaves throughout the country. Two Nigerian nationals, four Kenyans, and an individual with a Mozambican passport are currently in custody in connection with the heinous murder. However, they have not yet been formally charged or asked to plead.
Despite the ongoing investigation, the motive behind the murder remains unknown. Detectives suspect that the perpetrators may have been professionals due to the gruesome nature of the crime.
Rita’s body was discovered in a dustbin shortly after her cold-blooded killing, and a postmortem revealed that she had missing fingernails. Government pathologist Oduor commented on the attempt to clip off the fingernails, stating, “This person who did all these also tried to clip off the fingernails for reasons which I might not be able to know but for us scientists, when we see fingernails clipped off, we think probably the person was trying to hide evidence so that we are unable to get his DNA from the victim.”
