Police in Nairobi launched a manhunt for a 30-year-old man suspected of murdering his girlfriend in Langata on Sunday, November 13, following a domestic altercation.
According to the victim's parents, the cheerful 31-year-old Naneu Muthoni Muturi had visited the suspect on Friday, November 11.
The two had been in a relationship for one year, despite incessant calls by her mother to end the ill-fated union after she was reportedly assaulted several times.
"She once came home with a bloodshot eye but when I asked her what happened, she hid the cause of the injury, and blamed it on shampoo," her mother sadly recalled.
Always downplaying the situation, Muthoni was asked to abandon the rocky relationship, a plea that landed on deaf ears.
The on-and-off relationship saw Muthoni walk away several times, but she kept breaking her pledge and returned to her boyfriend.
According to the mother, when Muthoni made her final trip to Onyonka Estate, the two had not seen each other for almost three weeks following a spat.
She pleaded with her mother to visit the suspect one last time, and the mother granted her permission, oblivious that this was the last time she would see her.
After several failed attempts to reach her for two days, her mother went to her boyfriend's house on Monday, November 14, only to find her wounded body lying on the couch covered with a bed sheet.
"I tried calling her phone, but no one picked up, and the next time I tried, her phone was off, this time, I drove there and found policemen at the boyfriend's house," her devastated mother narrated.
The missing boyfriend, who was well-known to Muthoni's parents, was not at the crime scene. Detectives launched a manhunt for the fugitive, who was treated as the main suspect in the gruesome murder.
The grief-stricken family, still digesting the sad turn of events surrounding their last-born daughter, urged the suspect to surrender himself to the police.
Police reports indicated that the deceased's body had deep cuts on the forehead, with blood oozing from the nose. The crime scene had blood splattered on the wall and the living room floor, indicating signs of a struggle.
An autopsy on the body is expected to be conducted on Wednesday, November 16.
