Three bodies exhumed from house

Police on Monday exhumed the bodies of three family members found buried in a small room at their homestead.

Earlier on Sunday, outraged residents of Satima village in Nyeri county had lynched a 25-year-old man who allegedly killed the three — his 70-year-old grandfather, 65-year-old grandmother and 14-year-old brother — and buried them in the room.

Villagers became suspicious after the 25-year-old man approached a neighbour seeking to sell two of his grandparents’ cows, claiming the elderly couple and his brother had died in an accident in Murang’a.

The grandparents and brother had been missing for about two weeks, villagers said.

The neighbour, Mr Godfrey Wachira, advised the man to consult elders at a church his grandparents attended.

Moments later he returned, saying he had discovered that his grandparents and brother were alive and well.

He reportedly blamed the mix-up on a brother who he said had called him while drunk and lied to him.

“This raised our suspicions further and we decided to confront him,” said Mr Wachira.

Another resident, Mr Baptista Githaiga, said on being interrogated, the man continued telling conflicting tales, prompting villagers to decide to go and search the couple’s homestead.

The man, however, refused to allow them to enter a smaller house in the compound, forcing them to break in.

“Inside, we found a fresh heap of soil and on digging a bit, everyone bolted from the room screaming after a human hand was exposed,” he said.

Villagers then turned on the man and beat him up, killing him on the spot.

Police later took his body to the Nyeri Provincial General Hospital.

Residents and relatives spent the night at the homestead as they waited for police to exhume the bodies.

Nyeri police boss Kirunya Limbitu led a team of officers that exhumed the partially decomposed bodies.

He said the elderly couple, identified as Mr Peter Kimani and Mrs Milka Njeri, appeared to have been bludgeoned to death with a blunt object.

He said the grandmother’s body, which had a deep cut on the forehead, was also completely naked, raising suspicions she might also have been raped before she was killed.

The 14-year-old boy also appeared to have been hit with a metal object on the side of the head, according to the police.

Mr Limbitu said the suspected killer had recently served a jail sentence for an undisclosed offence, adding that investigations had been launched.

Sources close to the family said the man had operated a motorcycle boda boda in Maragua area before he abandoned the business to come and live with his grandparents.

He had lived with the elderly couple for less than a month, the family source said.