Wife recalls last moments with Maai Mahiu taxi driver found dead in Machakos

As soon as Jane Wambui the wife to Samuel Mwangi finished explaining to us the harrowing details of what caused the death of his husband, a loud scream was heard coming from the bedroom. It was her daughter. 

The eight-year-old, who we thought was busy doing house chores in the other room, was eavesdropping as her mother narrated the last moments before Mwangi, was found dead in Machakos.

According to Wambui, Mwangi a taxi driver based in Maai Mahiu received a phone call from a client on the evening of May 4.

The caller needed assistance ferrying a sick person to the hospital. The following day, his lifeless body was discovered in a thicket in Machakos County. Heartbreakingly, his family would only be informed a week later.

Wambui says Mwangi spent most of that Sunday at home with their children. His car had been experiencing mechanical problems, but he managed to fix it during the day.

When she returned from church around 2 p.m., Mwangi told her he was heading into Maai Mahiu town to meet some friends.

“He came back home around 7 p.m and seemed to be in a hurry. He grabbed his car keys and told me he had been contracted to transport a sick person to the hospital,” Wambui recalls.

That was the last time she saw her husband.

Wambui says she became increasingly anxious when Mwangi failed to return home that night. His phone was off — something that was very unlike him. As hours passed with no word from him, her worry deepened.

“I called some of his friends to ask if they had seen or heard from him, but none of them had. That’s when I went to the Maai Mahiu Police Station and filed a missing person report,” she says.

While Wambui was frantically searching for her husband, Mwangi’s body lay cold at the Machakos Level Five Hospital mortuary. It had been discovered on May 5 by residents in a thicket in Kalama Sub-county, along the Katumani-Konza-Mombasa Highway.

Their worst fears were confirmed when the area chief in Makutano, Koibatek, Baringo County, (where Mwangi comes from) called to inform them that Samuel’s body had been identified in Machakos.

“We were told that Mwangi’s body had been found. The thought that we spent a whole week looking for him while he was lying in a mortuary was unbearable. I didn’t want to believe that the father of my children was gone,” Wambui says, tears welling in her eyes.

A postmortem revealed that Mwangi had suffered blunt force trauma to the head — he had been struck multiple times with a blunt object.

“His body was in bad shape. He had multiple blows to the head and injuries on his arms and wrists, likely from trying to defend himself,” Wambuiexplains.

Additionally, the wife says that the killers made away with the vehicle, phone and his documents before dumping his body.

Machakos County Criminal Investigations Officer, Benedict Kigen, confirmed that the body was first spotted by local residents. Police recovered it but found no identification documents on him.

Fingerprints were taken to the National Registration Bureau for identification. On May 13, results confirmed his identity, and efforts to trace his family began. 

Wambui’s plea remains that her husband’s killers are brought to book.