Fridah Warau Kamuyu 22, who died on January 17 in Kiambu Couty’s Titanic dam lived secretively, to a point completely detached from her relatives.
Even when she lay dead in the mortuary, none of her relatives or friends appeared to notice, no missing person report was made, and it is detectives who went searching for her parents to identify her from the mortuary freezers.
She died alongside Tirus Maina Gikonyo inside his Nissan X-Trail that reversed into the waters.
By the number plates of the vehicle, Gikonyo was identified by his family members and the police investigators were able to profile him as a consultancy and supplier in the building industry both locally and in Africa.
His file at Juja Police station indicates that he was born in 1984 in Nyeri County as the third-born son of the late Joseph Gikonyo and Madrin Wangui.
As for Fridah, she was to be identified in the mortuary on January 26 and detectives traced her roots to be in Murang’a County’s Njiku village in Mathioya constituency, though her parents currently live in Nairobi.
What has baffled both the sleuths and keen followers of the incident is how her tracks defined her as though a member of a secret society, living in the shadows like a silhouette regardless of her tender age.
When women of her age, education and beauty meet such tragedies, their network of friends, alumni and family members become active even on social media but for Fridah, everything around her was as silent as in a tomb.
Her file at Juja police station started by classifying her on January 18 as “an unidentified adult African female recovered from a water body in a drowning accident”.
The incident’s notes indicate that she had no identification document on her, classifying her case as Pending Under Investigations (PUI).
Delay in getting kin
After her body was retrieved from the dam, the scene of crime detectives had taken her fingerprints which were to later be scanned on the bureau of registration database after it was noted there was a delay in getting any of her kin to positively identify her.
Fridah Warau Kamuyu who drowned alongside businessman Tirus Maina Gikonyo at a Juja Dam in Kiambu.
Her incident file indicates in the preliminary report that “lack of documents on her complicated identification process ad it was only through prints imaging that it was possible to profile her bio leading to contacting her relatives”.
The relatives showed up at the City Mortuary in the Capital City on Thursday and positively identified her affording the detectives the leeway to attribute an identity to the body and proceed to have an autopsy conducted which showed she died of drowning.
She also had bruises on her left wrist. Police now say she is the second born in a family of four, holds a diploma in hospitality from a Kiambu County tertiary college and she had graduated in November last year.
Her assembled investigative file further indicates that while schooling in Thika, she had grown detached from her close relatives.
The file indicates that she ran a money transfer agency in Thika town “and also did some socialite gigs in the town and the process hooked up with the male friend with whom she died with”.
The deceased male had housed her in a rental house in Makongeni estate situated on the outskirts of Thika town and is reported to have been seeing each other for the past four months.
Divers at Titanic Dam in Juja, Kiambu County. Fridah Warau Kamuyu died alongside Mr Tirus Maina Gikonyo inside his Nissan X-Trail that reversed into the waters.
One of her close male friends from Makongeni whom Nation.Africa was referred to said that that she was planning to leave the country for greener pastures”.
While the two have been identified and autopsies, as well as witness statements, ruled out any foul play, Kiambu County Detective boss Richard Mwaura said investigations now seek to unravel whether the drowning was an accident or self-inflicted malice.
“Mechanical analysis of the vehicle, state of the bodies as recovered, analysis of autopsies, toxicology reports to ascertain chemical concentrations and sound deductions from correlated deductions will give us a file closure or escalation position,” he said. BY DAILY NATION