A week after the harrowing discovery of 12-year-old Patience Mumbe’s body near the perimeter fence just a few yards from Embakasi Police Station, homicide detectives have officially taken over the investigation.
The young girl’s death has sent shockwaves through the community, prompting a full-scale inquiry by specialised units within the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.
A Probox vehicle believed to have ferried the body of the deceased is being tracked down.
On Wednesday morning, detectives from the homicide department returned to the scene where Patience’s body was found to reconstruct the events surrounding her murder.
Their efforts were bolstered by a crucial witness stationed near Embakasi Primary School that night. The witness reported seeing a Toyota Probox approach the school road and make a suspicious U-turn in the dead of night, an action now believed to be linked to the disposal of Patience’s body.
Investigators from the forensic, imaging, and general investigations departments spent the entire day reviewing CCTV footage from the Pipeline area, where Patience was last seen running towards the highway.
The footage is being analysed to verify the witness’s account and to identify the vehicle and its occupants.
Beyond identifying the perpetrators, detectives are also working to uncover the motive behind the brutal killing and why the body was left so close to a police station. The proximity has raised troubling questions about the killers’ intentions and whether the location was chosen deliberately.
Detectives probing the case on Monday visited Mumbe’s home, where they questioned family members who last interacted with her.
Apart from the recovery of the CCTV footage, detectives are also conducting a site analysis by tracing vehicles and phones that were around the scene of the crime on Saturday morning, hours before the discovery of the body.
Patience Mumbe is reported to have gone missing while playing outside with friends. CCTV footage captured from several shops in the area shows her running from her home toward a road leading to the Taj Mall bus stop.
A postmortem examination conducted on Tuesday revealed that Patience suffered multiple injuries, including blunt force trauma to the head, signs of strangulation and evidence of sexual assault.
No suspect has been arrested so far, as the grieving parents continue to appeal for swift and thorough investigations.
