San Francisco-based company Airbnb has finally issued a statement regarding the separate and brutal murder incidents involving two women reported to have occurred within premises listed on the platform in Nairobi’s Roysambu and South B estates.
In a statement, Airbnb expressed shock over the events while at the same time emphasizing that the incidents are unrelated to accommodations booked through the platform.
According to Airbnb, the locations where the murders occurred had no bookings registered on the platform for the reported dates, and that persons of interest in both cases did not have registered accounts.
“Over the past week, Kenya has witnessed two heinous crimes in the city of Nairobi. We are saddened and shocked to learn of these events, and our thoughts are with the victims’ loved ones during this difficult time,” reads the statement published on Airbnb’s website.
“We can confirm that neither of these events were connected to stays on Airbnb. We do not have accounts registered to the names of the accused.”
During the first murder incident recorded on January 4, popular socialite Starlet Wahu was found dead at an alleged Airbnb apartment in South B.
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Police reports indicated that the deceased, 26, arrived at Papino Apartments a day prior in the company of a man, since identified as 34-year-old John Matara.
Video surveillance from the apartments captured Wahu and Matara entering an elevator within the apartment block before disembarking on the fourth floor and proceeding to their room which they had reportedly rented for a night.
Police later discovered the deceased’s lifeless body lying in a pool of blood inside the apartment after the Airbnb’s owner, Florence Ngina, told authorities that Matara hastily left the premises wearing blood-stained clothes.
Barely ten days after Wahu’s brutal murder, the dismembered body of a 20-year-old woman was found dumped in a trash bag at a reported Airbnb residence in Roysambu.
The proprietor of the Airbnb property, Risper Muthoni, said she received a call from the apartment’s caretaker who discovered the said body parts.
The woman’s remains, which were taken to city mortuary, have since been positively identified by her kin who declined to talk to media until police conclude investigations into the incident.
