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Caroline Maina murder: Hopes of big break in probe after phones recovered

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The recovery of two mobile phones belonging to murdered Nairobi businesswoman Caroline Wanjiku Maina has led investigators to believe that they are on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the case, almost a month after her body was discovered in a thicket in Kajiado County.

Two suspects, out of the original four who were arrested, have now spent 22 days in police custody without any charges being preferred against them. Mr Edwin Otieno Odiwuor and Mr Samuel Okoth Adinda will, for the third time, be presented before a magistrate at the Kibera Law Courts.

Also expected in the dock today, either in Nairobi or in Kisii, will be a 17-year-old student and a matatu tout from Kibera, who were arrested while in possession of the two phones. With the number of key suspects now rising to six, it is not known whether the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has finally decided on who will take the plea for Ms Maina’s murder. What is clear is that the finding of the phones over the weekend will greatly change the direction of the investigation.

Detectives from the Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau and the Special Service Unit at DCI headquarters have been tracking down the phones.

Ms Maina’s decomposing body was found by herders in a thicket in Paranai, Kajiado County on February 15, three days after she went missing. A post-mortem exam revealed that she died of blunt force trauma on both her forehead and back.

Four suspects — Mr Odiwuor, Mr Adinda, Stevenson Oduor Ouma and Mercy Gitiri Mongo — were arrested on suspicion of taking part in the murder of their former business partner. The two phones; an Oppo and a Samsung Galaxy A20S, were sold in the black market shortly after Ms Maina disappeared and her SIM cards removed and thrown away.

Caroline Maina murder: Family hold vigil for slain businesswoman

The phones were then factory reset and sold to new owners. Detectives have managed to track the two phones using their international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) numbers to a village in Suneka, Kisii.

An IMEI is a unique certificate contained in every phone that tracks it to the nearest cell phone tower and is used by the police to search for stolen phones.

“The first phone, a Samsung Galaxy A20S, was traced to a matatu tout with Safeline Sacco in Kibera, Nairobi, one Justus Nyamete Manyura alias Dennis Ongingo,” said DCI George Kinoti. “A 17-year-old male student at St Lawrence Nyabieyo Secondary School was arrested with the second phone, make Oppo, which had also paired a third SIM card registered under the names Jonah Munyao Gato,” said the DCI.

The discovery of both phones which were previously registered to Safaricom lines registered under Ms Maina’s particulars are crucial in cracking up the case as they were being used to carry out the victim’s financial transactions.

With the finding of the two phones, the next step for the police is to forensically analyse them in order to retrieve any messages and their call logs which had been deleted when they were factory reset before being sold to new owners.

The immediate step however is to establish how Mr Manyura and the 17-year-old student got ownership of mobile phones stolen from a person who was murdered.

Curiously, both of them were arrested in the same village and more than 300 kilometres from where Ms Maina’s body was found.

Mobile phones

If at all Mr Manyura and the 17-year-old student did buy those two mobile phones they will have to explain to detectives where they bought them.

Detectives hope that the two new suspects will help them break new ground that will eventually assist the DCI to recreate Ms Maina’s final moments alive.

Under the Doctrine of Recent Possession, anyone found with property stolen from a person who has been murdered has to provide a reasonable explanation as to how they acquired the goods or be placed at the murder scene circumstantially.

“It is risky and dangerous to buy any electronic device from suspicious outlets. Being found with suspected stolen property, you suffer immediate consequences of the actual criminal, which may escalate to death sentences,” warned the DCI.

“When detectives forensically investigate and find you in possession of such said devices, by the time it is established that you were not involved in the crime, you may have suffered immensely,” he warned.

While detectives seem to be making crucial advancements in investigation of this particular murder which took place almost a month ago, they are yet to establish who among the suspects in custody killed Ms Maina and where did it take place.

The case will come up for hearing today (Monday).

BY Natiob

Entertainment

Journalist Hassan Mugambi set to wed former video vixen Mwanaidi

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By Wanja Waweru

Hassan Mugambi, a reporter for Citizen TV, is getting hitched to Mwanaidi Shishy.

A celebration that the journalist will host will be attended by close relatives and friends.

Friends of Mugambi congratulated him on his impending nuptials on social media.

His colleague and fellow journalist Ayub Abdikadir sent him well wishes as he started his married life.

Former video vixen Mwanaidi now runs the Mama Nilishe restaurant in Kilimani, which serves Swahili food.

Mugambi is a well-known journalist who has won numerous honors over his career.

His career began at the Kibra radio station Pamoja FM, and it later moved to CGTN, formerly CCTV.

Later, he was hired by K24, a channel owned by Mediamax, before switching to Citizen TV in 2017.

Mugambi won the Outstanding Media Security Investigative Award for the year 2019.

He received praise from the Protective and Safety Association of Kenya (PROSAK) for his excellent and dependable reporting on security issues in the nation.

At the Nairobi Security Expo in 2023, he received the Security and Crime Reporter of the Year 2023 honor.

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News

Eric Omondi flies to London for lunch to prove a point to Moses Kuria

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By Wanja Waweru

The Trade Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria has received criticism from content creator and comedian Eric Omondi for admitting that he regretted supporting his tour to the United States seven years ago.

Eric, who has argued forcefully against the Finance Bill 2023, has gone to London “for lunch” to show Mr. Kuria that he can afford to pay for his travel expenses.

The comedian pleaded with the CS in a post on his Instagram account not to accept the planned taxation of content producers so that they may also travel in Business Class without receiving financial help from politics.

“After hearing Moses Kuria speak, I decided to take myself to London just for Lunch and also thank God for how far He’s brought us. Thank you bwana Kuria for sponsoring my tour seven years ago but please don’t tax content creators 15% so that they are able to tour on their own,” he said.

Mr. Kuria criticized Eric on live television on Wednesday at the Citizen TV-hosted Big Conversation debate for criticizing the government regarding the draft Bill.

He expressed sorrow over what he claimed to have funded Eric for a vacation to the US seven years prior, claiming that he might have instead had fun with the money.

“I have heard Eric Omondi claiming he is a youth. Seven years ago I used my own money to take him to America to expose him and right now, according to the way he is talking, I wished I used that money to party because it doesn’t seem like he learned anything from it,” Mr Kuria said from Belarus.

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Health

Kakamega family demands justice after botched treatment leads to 3-year-old losing five fingers

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By Wanja Waweru

A family from Bukhaywa village, Lurambi Constituency, Kakamega county, is calling for justice after their three-year-old son’s right hand was amputated of all the fingers due to improper treatment.

“My son had a burn on his left hand and was in a stable condition when we took him to hospital, but because of the doctor’s negligence, all his right fingers were cut off and he is disabled now,” the victim’s father Mr Zephaniah Likavo said.

Winnie Auma, the mother of the victim, claimed that the nurse was an intern who gave her son an incorrect drug injection. When she witnessed how the son’s body responded, she reported the incident to the doctor, but nothing was done about it.

“My son was crying in pain and the colour of his hand changed. I wondered what was happening and reported to the doctor, but no action was taken. Instead, he said it was normal for such a reaction to happen,” she said

The family claims they received word shortly after that their son’s fingers would need to be amputated in order to stop an infection.

The management of the hospital refuted the accusations, claiming that the family had moved their son to a different facility where his fingers had been severed.

“We treated their son and there was a challenge in finding the vein in the hand, so it affected his fingers and later they wanted a transfer to another hospital for specialised treatment. That’s where they amputated the fingers,” the official said.

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