This archive report was first published on 6 August 2019.
On January 26, 2017, Jane Nduta, a 40-year-old mother of three, left her job at Joyland Bar in Kaharati, Murang'a County, around 10:30 pm. She had been working as a barmaid for some time and had left her husband, Patrick Maina, in 2012 after a 10-year marriage.
Without a car, Nduta relied on public transport to get to her rented house in Maragua Town, which was 10 kilometers away. However, she did not make it home that night. The following morning, she was found naked in a thicket, five kilometers from the bar where she worked, and had been assaulted.
According to then-Murang'a County Police boss Naomi Ichami, Nduta had been strangled, hit with a blunt object on the head, and raped. She was brought to Maragua Level Four Hospital, where she was alive but in a very bad shape, as described by nurse James Mwangi, who was on duty that morning.
However, Nduta was not attended to by a doctor since they were on strike. After four days, her relatives moved her to Kiririaini and Kimkan private hospitals, and she was finally admitted to Outspan, a private hospital in Nyeri, where she died seven days later.
Then-Murang'a DCIO Julius Rutere claimed that investigations into Nduta's death were hampered by a lack of information, but nurse Mwangi disputed this, saying that the police never visited the hospital to question the victim and that the procedures for handling a rape victim were not followed.
Furthermore, Nduta's relatives were allowed to bathe her, which could have compromised the collection of evidence for nailing her rapist. The investigating officers also ignored leads that would have been useful, including a statement from Nduta's former employer, Leah Mwangi, who said that Nduta had told her that her lover, who rode a boda-boda, was the one who attacked her.
