Matheri Snip

Geoffrey Matheri, also known as Fongo was arrested in 2008 for the crimes (Photo: Standard).

By Lorna Abuga

The case in which a former Naivasha street boy is accused of kidnapping and torturing two women was heard in a Nakuru court on Monday July 21. Geoffrey Njoroge Matheri alias Fongo is said to have drained the blood of his victims before drinking it as they watched. Matheri who is currently in prison is also accused of killing Miriam Wairimu.

Testifying before high court judge Maureen Odero, John ole Mpoke, a witness said that he had been involved in the rescue operation of one of Matheri’s victims.

“On August 14 2008 I received a distress call from Philip Gachie who is one of the neighbours of the accused person informing me about a woman who had been kidnapped by the accused person but had managed to escape.”

“Gachie told me that the woman had disclosed that she had left behind another woman who was still being held captive by the suspect,”

said Mpoke who worked as a Community Policing Officer at the time.

Mpoke said that it is at this point that he mobilized his colleagues and they drove up to the compound of the accused person where they found him seated outside his house with a lady. However when the suspect saw them he escaped leaving behind the woman.

“We did a quick search in the house and found a school girl’s uniform, a mattress and a mug which had blood stains.”

He said when they interrogated the woman the accused had left behind, she disclosed she was a resident of Kihoto and that she had been kidnapped on her way to the shop and had been tortured by the suspect.

“When we examined her we realized that she was very weak and had bruises allover her face and some wounds on some parts of the body, so we decided to rush her to the Naivasha District Hospital for treatment.”

He told the court that a few days after the incident, the neighbours of the accused alerted his team that they had discovered a grave in one of the rooms. Police would later exhume body from the house.

“I was asked to conduct a postmortem on a body which had been exhumed from the grave by the investigating officer. However the deceased body was in a bad shape because her clothes were tortured and full of blood stains,”

another witness Peter Muriuki told the court.

Muriuki said that on physical examination of the body, he realized that one of her toes had been amputated, there was a deep wound on the left breast and the chest cavity. He added that the lungs had been perforated and some ribs were missing.

“It is quite obvious that sharp objects were used to harm the deceased because her body was disfigured due to severe cuts all over her body,”

he said while adding that a DNA test was also conducted on the body for identification.

The Prosecution Officer Nelly Ngovi produced the mattress, the school uniform of a girl and a whip as exhibits as the next hearing was set for December 2.

When the story of Matheri was broken it got many Kenyans by surprise as he confessed to having done ungodly acts to his victims. Two years later, Philip Onyancha, another resident of Naivasha was arrested on similar charges.