This archive report was first published on 16 November 2019.
On October 25, Joyce Syombua, a 31-year-old mother, left Nairobi with her two children, Shanice Maua and Prince Michael, to visit her estranged partner, Peter Mugure, a Kenya Defence Forces officer stationed at Laikipia Air Base.
The visit was meant to iron out relationship issues and reunite the children with Mugure, who had been granted access to them by a court.
However, the family's visit turned tragic when their bodies were discovered buried a few miles from the air base on November 16, 2019.
According to initial investigations, the family had gone for a late lunch together on October 25 and was scheduled for a night out later. Mugure claimed he cancelled the family night out after receiving an emergency call from his work station.
He later said he escorted his family to a bus stage to board a matatu back to Nairobi, which was the last time he claimed to have seen them.
However, Syombua's friend suspected something was amiss after the mother's phone went unanswered. A missing person report was filed at Nanyuki police station, alleging that Syombua had informed her friend that she did not find her lover and the two kids when she returned from the bathroom.
A cellphone belonging to Syombua was later discovered inside a matatu plying the Nanyuki-Nyahurur road, not the Nyahurur-Nairobi highway.
However, a driver attached to the 4NTE Sacco refuted claims of having ferried Syombua and her children to Nairobi, stating that the vehicle was on private duty in Bomet county.
On November 16, 2019, a team of homicide detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) based in Nanyuki discovered the bodies of Syombua and her two children.
Peter Mugure, the main suspect, was arrested on November 16, 2019, and led detectives to the site where the bodies were found.
