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Detectives have stumbled upon details indicating that the slain Roysambu woman and the suspect allegedly met on the social media platform Instagram.
The information was obtained from the slain woman’s account, which was cracked by detectives investigating the January 13 murder at an apartment in Roysambu, Nairobi.
The investigators say the two avoided using voice calls and other platforms like WhatsApp in their conversation and resorted to the social media platform.
This, according to the detectives shows the initiator, who is the man had an unclear agenda.
It is not clear how long the two had been in touch.
“It seems they conversed using the platform up to the day of the meeting. He gave her the directions to the apartment through the platform,” said an investigator aware of the probe.
The suspect had at one point told the woman he wanted to travel out of the country hence the need for the meeting.
The motive of the murder is yet to be established. Police are also yet to recover the woman’s head.
The woman then left her Syokimau home in Athi River for Roysambu for the meeting arriving late in the evening.
She told a friend she was headed for dinner and would be back.
Even though the family has identified the body, police have urged them to remain mum and calm and wait for forensic results on her identity.
According to police, part of the conversation between the two shows the man asked the girl to meet him at the TRM bus stop.
He told her he was in white shoes and after she alighted she told him where she was standing and her dress code.
They then met and proceeded to their already-booked room.
Police want to establish if the woman was drugged before she was abused and killed.
It is also believed the murder took place in the room’s bathroom.
The man is also believed to have used a hacksaw in his mission to dismember the body and later packed the body parts in a bed sheet and later in a paper bag and disposed of the remains in a dustbin.
The remains were discovered the following day long after the man had escaped the scene.
Police are questioning three suspects over the incident.
Among them is a foreigner who was nabbed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on suspicion of being involved in the murder of the woman.
The suspect who was travelling using a Mozambican passport was intercepted before boarding a plane and interrogated at the airport before being transferred to the Kasarani Police Station pending identification.
Police say it is too early to ascertain whether the man in police custody is the suspect captured on camera picking keys to the house where the girl was allegedly killed and her body parts dumped in paper bags.
The investigating officers visited Ruaka where the suspected killer stayed or had been seen on the day the murder happened.
Using CCTV footage, and phone triangulation, the police placed the suspect in Ruaka, Kiambu, where he seems to have been staying for days.
The murder attracted condemnation from the Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) which has asked the government to protect women and girls following increased cases of Gender-Based Violence.
FIDA, which has put the number of women killed similarly at 10 in the last year, said there is a need for the security agencies to investigate thoroughly the circumstances under which the ladies were killed.
FIDA vice chair Christine Kung’u said they remain very concerned about the longstanding failure to protect women and girls from this type of violence, which in most cases occurs in private spaces by perpetrators who are well known to the victims.
“In the case of Starlet Wahu, several women have come forth that this man had been reported. So we’re questioning, what happened with the investigations,” FIDA CEO Anne Ireri said.
“If we could tighten measures, coupled with databases of sexual violators within the law, then it is easier to be able to track a perpetrator.”
Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua, whose ministry is mandated with the registration and licensing of facilities offering private accommodation, has said that the Tourism Regulatory Authority will rigorously enforce compliance and take legal action against any violations of licensing laws.
Mutua has urged the public to verify the registration and license status of facilities to ensure compliance with outlined directives by the government.
He added that the ministry will conduct a comprehensive review of current TRA regulations to foster closer partnerships with accommodation providers.
BY CYRUS OMBATI