Almost without exception, Kenyans believe that violent crime is increasing. In the short run, they are right. But what really worries most people is not the short-run trend but their sense that violent crime has been climbing steadily for a long time and that the future will only bring further increases.
The recent incidence under investigations is of Mildred Odira, a woman who went missing after hiring a taxi to take her to hospital in Nairobi,later to be found dead nearly a week after her disappearance.
The body of Ms. Odira, an employee of a company based at the Nation Centre, was found on Monday morning at City Mortuary, according to her family.
Speaking to Citizen TV at the mortuary, Mildred Odira’s brother said her body had deep cuts on the forehead, neck and navel — injuries that seemed to have been inflicted with a sharp object.
Even worse, the brother pointed out that Ms. Odira’s killers crushed her legs by running them over with a vehicle.
“We are asking ourselves, what did Millie do… What debt did she have that the family could not have paid to necessitate such a brutal, inhumane murder,” posed her brother.
Mildred Odira, a mother of one and an employee of Foresight company had been missing since Tuesday, January 29, after boarding a taxi that was to ferry her to hospital. Police have since arrested the taxi driver linked to Ms. Odira’s disappearance.
She is said to have left her house early morning on January 29, in Kariobangi South to head to Ruaraka Uhai Neema Hospital in Kasarani, Nairobi.
According to her sister, Mildred had been on medication for ulcers and her blood pressure had also been a reason for concern.
Her 9-year-old son, however, was the one who made the family raise questions on the whereabouts of his mother, after he failed to attend school that day.
Mildred Odira’s switched-off phone prompted her sister Maureen to visit her home, where the guards at the gate informed her that they had called a taxi driver to help Mildred get to hospital on Tuesday morning.
The Ruaraka Uhai Neema Hospital became the first searching point for Mildred’s family.
The visit to the hospital on Wednesday raised more questions than what the family had anticipated and with the help of the police officers from the Kasarani Police Station, the hospital’s CCTV footage was availed to them on Thursday.
According to the hospital administration, no one by the name Mildred Odira was attended to on that day.
Kasarani police say the taxi driver, who was arrested on Saturday, has gone silent after being shown the CCTV footage.