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Famed for sitting directly on the equator, the market town of Nanyuki has now become linked to a tragic event. This is where Agnes Wanjiru was born and raised, and brutally was killed.

Weeks passed as her relatives looked for her, when her remains was found dumped in a sewage container at the exact hotel where she was last seen.

Growing Up

Agnes was brought up by her mother, who took on what the family fondly called “informal jobs,” such as working the land, while raising her five kids.

The oldest child, Rose Wanyua Wanjiku, was followed by a male sibling, James Mwangi, after that Cecilia Muthoni, and finally Francinsca Njoki. Agnes was the last born.

Throughout her young adulthood, Agnes lived in Nanyuki. On the rare occasions she left town, it was only to spend time with her sibling Cecilia, who lived several hours away.

Education and Interests

She started her early education at a Nanyuki school, and later attended Gakawa high school. She liked lessons and her favourite subject was English literature.

Agnes also adored music—frequently be seen chanting or moving to the beat.

She took pleasure in busying herself in the food space and spending her free time with her kin. As a sister, daughter, and auntie, Agnes was reliable and kind, her family said. She was also humorous.

“She was forever making jokes, beaming,” recalled her niece Esther Njoki. “We were always chuckling due to her jokes.”

Work and Family

Growing up, Agnes would look after her young relatives, often braiding their hair. Eventually, she turned her pastime into a profession; she started training to be a hairdresser in 2010.

She finished her program in August 2011. A handful of months later, before she had a chance to truly start out her professional life, she was murdered.

During the time she completed her studies, Agnes was also heavily pregnant. Her child Stacey was born on 20 October the same year.

“Agnes’s feelings about becoming a mum was as if the best feeling imaginable,” Esther Njoki said.

She cherished her little girl but struggled to support her. Like several women in Nanyuki, Agnes would earn additional income from commercial encounters. The British army training base provided a constant stream of business.

The Tragic Evening

Troops would come into Nanyuki to socialize, and several would purchase sex with local women, sometimes a few in one night, offering them as little as the equivalent of £1 each.

Agnes would frequent bars in the town to catch up with her friends and dance. The night she went missing, 31 March 2012, started like many others. She went to the a local hotel, a regular haunt of British soldiers, to see her friends Florence Nyaguthii and Susan Nyambura.

They said her meeting them at approximately 11pm and the three women enjoying themselves together. Agnes was sipping a beer that she informed her friends had been given to her by a British soldier.

Contrary to heading to her sister’s place like she did every other night, Agnes was never seen again. The morning after, her friends and family had received no word from her.

They went to the hotel where she was last spotted, and passed days looking for Agnes, until her body was uncovered two months later.

Ongoing Pain

Agnes’s death has had a enduring impact on her family. Stacey was just an infant when she said goodbye to her mother and will not remember her, but has been deeply affected after discovering how she died.

“We have been having moments where she sees something about her mum and she breaks down,” Njoki shared, “and that’s because of trauma.”

Njoki and her mother, Rose, have shouldered the pain of Agnes’s death for 13 years. “You just keep on thinking about Agnes, about the case, and you just become heartbroken,” she confided.

“It’s really heart-wrenching, for sure, and upsetting, and our hearts will never be the same.”