By Kiyo Nganga.
Friday, April 7, 2023 – I keep insisting on this point – if you are a landlord, have a working and proper CCTV system in your apartments, if you are a business owner, have a working CCTV at your workplace, and also very important have a working CCTV at your home.
It can work as a deterrence, an alert system, and even when things go south, it can be used as an after-facts reference.
As Detectives are investigating the murder of Ms. June Jerop Kangogo, an accountant at the National Industrial Training Authority (Nita) among, the three clues that gave away the killers were moments captured on camera.
Detectives traced Ms. Jerop’s last movements and conversations, moments before she went missing and her body was later found dumped by pedestrians near Jamhuri Primary School in Nairobi County.
Investigators established that on March 19th the boyfriend Mr. Jesse Wakukha picked up Ms. Jerop from her apartment in South B and left for a “date”.
This was captured by CCTV footage; The boyfriend is seen picking her up from her apartment in South B in his Mercedes Benz before they left for an unknown destination.
This gave the investigators the first important leads; where Jerop was, who picked her, when she was picked, what model of the car and even the number plate of the vehicle.
Using transactions made that night from Jerop’s phone, another lead as to where they could have headed came knocking; Jerop purchased something at a pharmacy in Imara Daima.
At the pharmacy CCTV installed captures Jerop and the Mercedes Benz awaiting outside.
A good lead that the boyfriend was still in tow.
That same night of March 19, the boyfriend traveled to his rural home in Bungoma County, using the same vehicle, he is captured by traffic CCTV cameras exiting Nairobi alone.
This is where the attempted cover-up starts.
Wakukha reached his rural home in Bungoma and left the mercedes there , used a public service vehicle to travel back to Nairobi on March 24.
By this time the body had already been found, and DCI had already taken up the investigations.
Same day on 24th, Wakukha on arrival back to the city carrying chicken and sugarcane, he was pounced on by sleuths at Land Mawe and the first reference was the CCTV footages , then the question;
“Where is this Mercedes Benz that you used to pick Jerop?”
He had to take the detectives back to Bungoma.
The Mercedes was clean, Luminol mixed with hydrogen peroxide react with the heme groups in blood, producing a blue glow known as chemiluminescence, that’s what gave out Wakukha as the main suspect in the murder of his girlfriend Jerop.
Though cleaned up, the Mercedez Benz had traces of blood all over. The blood samples were taken to the government chemist for a DNA test to establish if it matches with that of the deceased.
Preliminary investigations from an autopsy indicate that Ms Jerop may have died due to excessive bleeding, as a result of severe injuries sustained from a sharp object.
Her body was found, covered with blood and swollen, a pointer that she may have been stabbed many times or hit by a blunt object.
I will again say, prioritize a good CCTV system, when renting a house, check whether they have working CCTV cameras.
See also Jeff Mwathi’s case and the role played by CCTVs.
If you leave your children at home with a nanny, we are living in different times , the times are dangerously unpredictable, have atleast one nanny camera mated to your mobile phone.
The Kenyan DAILY POST.