The mystery surrounding the macabre murder of four family members and a construction worker in Kiambu County has deepened after it emerged that their son has gone missing.
Mr Lawrence Njoroge, a student at the Thika-based Mount Kenya University, has been missing since the night of the murder, sources told the Nation.
He is a son of Mr Nicholas Njoroge, who was killed alongside his family.
Detectives investigating the matter told the Nation on Friday that Lawrence’s phone was switched off on Tuesday night in Naivasha, Nakuru County.
This is the same night that killers raided their rural home in Kagongo Village, Kiambu, and hacked his father to death alongside his mother Ms Wanjiku Njoroge, his brother Mr C. Njoroge, his cousin Mr Maxwell Njoroge, and their farmhand.
Kiambu County Commissioner Wilson Wanyanga said the son has been missing since the night of the murders and efforts to trace him have been futile.
“Nothing has been heard of him since the murders happened. We have tried to track him using his mobile phone but this has not been successful because his phone signal shows it was switched off on the same day the bodies of his family members were recovered inside their house,” said Mr Wanyanga.
“Police records show that his mobile phone was last switched off in Naivasha, Nakuru County,” said Mr Wanyanga.
Mount Kenya University head of Marketing and Communication Boniface Murigi, when contacted by the Nation, said he could not comment about the issue given no family members had reached out to the institution.
Lawrence’s disappearance for nearly a week, police said, had further complicated the investigation because detectives investigating the matter had always believed that he had escaped death by a whisker because he had just reported back to school a day before the attack.
Two other children of Mr Njoroge, who were in school when the killings happened, are safe.
Detectives on Friday told the Nation they had narrowed their investigations down to either succession wars, family jealousy or ritual killings as the motive of the killings.
