NAKURU, Kenya, Sep 15 – Police in Nakuru have arrested a farmhand in Mariashoni area of Elburgon, Molo in connection with the murder of his elderly employers.
The couple, Pius Machogu, 72, and his wife, Jerusha Kwamboka, 70 went missing on Saturday evening only for their bodies to be discovered in a locked well within their compound.
Police are still looking for a female domestic worker who was running household chores for the couple as she is still missing.
Neighbors said that the couple who are Seventh Day Adventist was last seen in the company of their farmhand after the church service on Saturday.
Residents said that they realised something was amiss at the home when efforts to alert them about livestock that had invaded one of their farms failed.
While narrating his last moments with the couple, an SDA church elder, Jared Bosire who is also a neighbor said attempts to access Machogu and Kwamboka physically and on phone failed.
“Their phones went unanswered prompting neighbors to knock on their door at different time intervals to no response,” Bosire said.
He said neighbors decided to call the couple’s children and informed them on the happenings back home after their efforts to trace them failed but their (children’s) phone calls were also declined.
“All this time, the farmhand was insisting that the couple was asleep in the house. He even told people to stop asking him about their where-abouts and locked the main gate,” he said.
Bosire said the community mobilised itself to break into the compound and alerted police at about 8:00pm because they were getting worried by the minute.
“Neighbours were certain that something sinister had happened to the couple because it is not common for them to decline phone calls, sleep early or lock themselves inside,” he said.
He said several men scaled the perimeter wall to gain access to the compound and forced the farmhand to open the gate paving way for police officers who had been alerted about the incident to access the scene.
“Police accessed the house and checked all the room, the couple was nowhere to be found but their phones were in their bedroom,” he said.
He said police saved the farmhand from residents who were baying for his blood. The farmhand was new in the neighbourhood since he was reportedly employed about two months ago.
The couple’s bodies were retrieved from a well within the compound after the farmhand confessed to the murder and told the police where he hid the bodies,
The well’s cover had been locked with a padlock.
Another neighbour, Rael Kirui said the man’s body had visible injuries.
The bodies were removed to Elburgon Sub-County Hospital Mortuary.