Headless Body of Teacher Who Went Missing Last December Found, Husband Arrested

A teacher who disappeared in December last year was on Thursday found in an abandoned well in Igwamiti location Nyahururu, Laikipia county.

Detectives found the decomposing body of Miriam Wanjiru who was a teacher of St Louis secondary school, in the same town, after she had been missing from December 19, 2021.

According to the DCI, the disappearance of the teacher, and a mother of a one-year-old, was reported at Losogwa police station by her house help who had become weary of her whereabouts.

"Detectives based at Nyahururu immediately swung into action and began investigations into the teacher’s disappearance. In the course of their investigations, they discovered that Wanjiru had separated from her husband, one Peter Kanyi, after irreconcilable differences," DCI stated.

On the day she went missing, the husband is said to have called her informing her that he had taken poison and was about to die.

Kanyi requested that she saves her and the deceased responded to the distress call not knowing it was a trap laid for her, DCI stated

"Using cyber forensic analysis of digital data that was processed at the DCI National Forensic laboratory, the main suspect in the murder Anthony Mutahi, 29, was arrested yesterday. After intensive grilling, the suspect led the sleuths to 90-metres-deep water well, where he had disposed of the deceased’s body. The detectives retrieved the body that had its head missing," DCI stated.

The teacher is said to have sold a matatu that her estranged husband was operating rendering him jobless.

It was also established that the main suspect who led detectives to the deceased teacher's body had withdrawn Ksh100,000 from an Equity bank branch in Nyahururu using her ATM cards.

"Upon further scrutiny of the well, the second body of an unidentified teenage girl that was badly decomposed was found. Scenes of Crime experts have since extracted samples from the body for DNA profiling.

"The deceased’s estranged husband Peter Kanyi, has also been arrested and together with his accomplice will face murder charges, contrary to section 203 as read with section 204 of the Penal Code," DCI added.

The deceased’s child is under the care and protection of the local Children’s officer, who is working closely with DCI’s Anti Human Trafficking and Child Protection detectives, to ensure that the infant is well taken care of.