This archive report was first published on 27 October 2021.
On September 13, 2021, Thomas Oyaro, a 42-year-old US-based nurse, met a gruesome end in Nyamira County, Kenya. His body was found dismembered and thrown out of a speeding car at Konate junction.
Oyaro had returned to Kenya two weeks prior to his death, after working as a psychiatrist nurse in the United States for three years. He had been building a hospital in Kisii, which would have provided quality but affordable healthcare to hundreds of low-income earners.
His wife, Jackline Mokeira, is now left to pick up the pieces and seek answers from the police. She has been spending sleepless nights, trying to make sense of her husband's tragic death.
"We don't know the motive. Whatever the case, it was horrible. He was tortured and died a very painful death," Mokeira told the Nation.
According to Mokeira, Oyaro had changed his routine prior to his death, but she did not suspect anything sinister. He had left home on April 16 for the US, but returned on August 14, which was unusual.
"I don't know why he came back sooner than expected. He didn't finish his usual one-year stay in the US. He didn't tell me why he had returned home early," Mokeira said.
On the night of September 11, Oyaro appeared disturbed and had nightmares. However, he looked jovial in the morning. Mokeira traveled to Ibeno later that day to visit a relative who had had a baby, while Oyaro chose to stay home and take care of their last-born child.
When Mokeira returned in the evening, Oyaro was not in. She tried calling him, but his phone went unanswered. This was unusual, as Oyaro would usually come home by 10pm and stop at Shelton Hotel to study.
At noon on Monday, Mokeira visited the site and established that Oyaro had been there on Sunday evening. He had paid workers and left at 5pm, boarding a boda boda that dropped him at Nyamarambe stage.
A butcher also admitted to seeing Oyaro there. On Tuesday morning, Mokeira alerted her in-laws that Oyaro was missing, who reported at Nyamarambe police station.
"We placed announcements on the mainstream and social media. On September 15, I heard that a body had been dumped in Nyamira. A friend checked but it was a woman, so I stopped panicking. I had faith he was alive," Mokeira said.
However, on Monday last week, Mokeira received a call from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations that fingerprints of a body that had been dumped at Konate junction had matched those of Oyaro's.
"We have a relative at DCI in Nairobi, who helped to coordinate the identification process," Mokeira said. She said other than that, police have done "nothing else" in investigations.
Fast-track investigations
"We want to know the whereabouts of his phone. On the day the body was dumped at Konate, his phone signal was traced to a hotel in Nyamarambe. It remained on for some days," Mokeira said.
Traders on the busy Kisii-Ikonge-Nyamira Road said the vehicle that dumped the body had no registration number.
"It's a terrible incident. We promise to fast-track investigations. The killers will be known," said Nyamira County Commissioner Amos Mariba.
