The police have been allowed to continue detaining a man accused of killing an unidentified woman on Umoja estate, Nairobi, and dismembering her body.
David Kariuki has been charged with the murder of the woman, whose body was found dumped in Tumaini Primary School grounds on May 31.
Kariuki pleaded to be freed on bond but the Directorate of Criminal Investigations objected.
He is said to have seduced the woman on an unknown date last month and taken her to his rented house in Umoja 1 where he killed her and dismembered the body before wrapping the parts in wedding décor materials, which he stuffed in four bales.
He thereafter relocated to Ruai from where he was traced and arrested.
A garbage collector hired by Kariuki’s former landlady Nancy Wanja and caretaker to her buildings Nicholas Kimanthi, dumped the four bales in the Tumaini school compound.
Wanja and Kimanthi have been charged with accessory to murder and freed on Sh100,000 bail each. Garbage collector Kennedy Otieno Omar was freed without charges.
Wanja had evicted Kariuki after he defaulted on two months’ rent.
Last week, the accused denied the murder charge before Justice Grace Ngenye of Milimani law courts.
And in an affidavit before Justice Ngenye on June 24, Inspector John Kanampiu of Buruburu DCI offices said there is an ongoing investigation of another case in which Kariuki is a person of interest.
The suspect, the affidavit states, is the person captured on CCTV leaving a club in downtown Nairobi on April 27, last year, with a woman who was later killed and her torso dumped along Landhies Road near Nacico Plaza.
Kanampiu opposed Kariuki’s bail application, citing fears that he might contact key prosecution witnesses if he is freed. He said the accused knows the gravity of this offence. If found guilty, the punishment is death.
“The body was heavily dismembered after staying at the house for long. If Kariuki is freed he is likely to interfere with the ongoing investigations.
“It is in the interest of justice to deny the applicant bail and continue to detain him until the conclusion of the hearing,” the detective said.