Lydia Nyaboke Onano |
A 26-year-old woman was strangled by a boyfriend on their
first date last month.
Lydia Nyaboke Onano, who was staying with her younger
brother in Ngara, Nairobi, was reportedly meeting her boyfriend for the first
time and had promised to be back before the end of the day.
By around 6pm, however, she had not returned home, according
to her younger brother Japheth Onono. Her brother became worried and called
her.
“She told me she was in Ngong and may not come back home. I
then asked her for money to buy dinner, which she promised to send in the next
five minutes,” Onono recalled the events of July 23.
The money was never sent, prompting the brother to make
another call. The phone had gone off. His fears were compounded by the fact
that the sister, who worked as an M-Pesa attendant, had told him it was the
first date.
Lydia’s brother called his mother Irene Mogeni in Nyamira
County and informed her that he could not trace Lydia. The mother advised him
to be patient, saying perhaps her phone’s battery had gone low.
“Just days before she disappeared, she used to talk for long
hours on phone with someone. Out of curiosity, I asked her who it was, and she
told me it was a new boyfriend.
So on that Sunday, she was going to meet him for the first
time,” said Japheth, a second-year electrical engineering student at Technical University
of Kenya .
By Monday morning, she had not been found. On the third day,
Onono went to Pangani Police Station to report that his sister was missing. The
police advised him to report in Ngong where her sister communicated from last.
However, last Friday, the sad reality sank when officers
from the Special Crimes Prevention Unit called him.
The police said they had arrested a suspect who had owned up
to murdering his sister and dumping the body in Ngong forest, near Lenana
School.
According to the police, the body of an unknown woman had
been found there and taken to City Mortuary.
The confession of the suspect and the report in the police
occurrence book at Mutuini Police Post prompted the detectives to call the
family.
The police then accompanied Japheth to City Mortuary where
he positively identified the body.
Lydia’s father Zachariah Mogeni Onono and mother Irene were
called to Nairobi on Sunday and they also helped to identify the body
yesterday. A postmortem report indicated Lydia died from strangulation.
Richard Nyakina, the suspect, told investigators that he had
known Lydia for over a year and he killed her for allegedly cheating on
him.
He told the detectives that on the fateful day, Lydia
received a call from another man who was referring to her as ‘sweetie’ and upon
demanding to know who the caller was, an argument ensued.
He then hit her on the head and later used her bra, blouse
and shoe laces to strangle her to death.
He has contradicted the family’s assertion that they had met
for the first time.
The suspect was arrested last Thursday in Gucha, Kisii
County.
The police traced Lydia’s phone to a Form Four student to
whom the suspect had sold the phone.
The student then took the police to a barber’s shop in
Mukuru where they found the suspect.
It turned out that the barber shop was owned by the
suspect’s relative, who led the police to his rural home.
Yesterday, police presented Nyakina at Milimani law
courts and asked for five more days before they formally charge him with murder.
The police are also checking reports that Nyakina had
been charged earlier with rape and was out on bond.