Elvis Munene, a 19-year-old Nairobi City County employee who went missing on January 29, was found dead on Thursday, 23 days after he went missing.
Munene, who worked as an intern at the county’s IT department, was found dead at the Kenyatta National Hospital, despite public calls from his family for information regarding his whereabouts.
On the day he went missing, Munene had left work at the City Hall Annex for the Nairobi Central Business District to run errands and later proceed to his family’s home.
According to a report by Citizen TV, Munene received a call from his close friend while leaving work, and messages between the two men and a family member revealed that Munene and his friend had ventured downtown to purchase a phone cover.
In a bizarre twist, the two were confronted by police officers, with authorities detaining his friend while Munene fled.
However, Munene was captured by an alleged mob at the junction of Kirinyaga Road and Charles Rubia Road in the CBD and beaten senseless around 5:00pm and 7:30pm.
Eyewitnesses reported that Munene had allegedly stolen a phone at the time the mob took him down and beat him before the police arrived and rescued the KCA university student from the beatdown.
“That guy (Munene) snatched a phone, and a mob chased him, took him down, and beat him up. However, police arrived and rescued him, and later an ambulance came. Where they took him, we do not know,” stated a witness.
Munene was reportedly taken to KNH, where he received immediate medical attention. Due to the severity of his injuries, mostly to the head, he was later admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Munene reportedly succumbed to his injuries two days later with his body transferred to the KNH mortuary.
Meanwhile, the family, unaware of the development, continued their search until the day when Munene’s body was found. This has now led to queries raised by the family over the sequence of events leading to their kin’s tragic death.
On the day of his disappearance, Munene’s mother, Marion Karambu, claimed that her son had called her requesting additional money for transport to head home. However, when she arrived home from work, she was shocked to find that he was not there.
''He called me at around 4:20pm asking me for money to top up his transport, which I did send him. From then, when I got home at 8pm I discovered that he had not arrived,'' Karambu shared.
According to them, further intrigue lay in the fact that on the day Munene disappeared, he went to work without his identification documents, leaving them at home.
These included his work and national identification documents that he would at least have needed to gain access to his employer's premises.
''After searching for him, when we got into his room, we found his IDs, the national one, job access, and school student identification,'' Karambu narrated.
The police have, in response to these developments, arrested Munene’s close friend along with others they believe are connected to the case.
The authorities are now questioning them in an effort to uncover the full details of what transpired on the fateful day and the succeeding events.
