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Famed for being located directly on the equator, the market town of Nanyuki has grown into linked to a tragic event. This is where Agnes Wanjiru was born and raised, and sadly was killed.

Weeks elapsed as her relatives looked for her, when her body was discovered hidden inside a sewage container at the very hotel where she was last spotted.

Her Background

Agnes was raised by her mum, who did what the family affectionately called “small jobs,” such as cultivating, while bringing up her five kids.

The oldest child, Rose Wanyua Wanjiku, was succeeded by a son, James Mwangi, after that Cecilia Muthoni, and lastly Francinsca Njoki. Agnes was the baby.

For all her 21 years, Agnes lived in Nanyuki. On the rare occasions she went away, it was only to visit her sister Cecilia, who lived several hours away.

Education and Interests

She started her primary education at a local primary school, and afterward attended Gakawa high school. She liked learning and her beloved subject was reading.

Agnes also loved music—regularly be seen chanting or moving to the beat.

She liked keeping busy in the kitchen and using her free time with her extended family. As a sister, daughter, and aunt, Agnes was reliable and gentle, her family shared. She was also witty.

“She was constantly teasing, smiling,” recalled her family member Esther Njoki. “We were always chuckling due to her jokes.”

Career and Motherhood

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

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

As she finished her studies, Agnes was also expecting a child. Her daughter Stacey was born on 20 October 2011.

“Agnes’s feelings about motherhood were like the most wonderful experience imaginable,” Esther Njoki said.

She cherished her infant but had difficulty to provide for her. As with many women in Nanyuki, Agnes would supplement her earnings from commercial encounters. The nearby military camp offered a steady flow of clients.

The Night She Disappeared

Soldiers would frequent Nanyuki to socialize, and many would engage in sex with residents, often several in one night, paying them only the equivalent of £1 each.

Agnes would go to bars in the town to meet her friends and dance. The night she disappeared, 31 March 2012, began typically. She went to the a local hotel, a regular location of British soldiers, to meet her friends Florence Nyaguthii and Susan Nyambura.

They remembered her joining them at around 11pm and the three women enjoying themselves together. Agnes was enjoying a beer that she mentioned to 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 not heard from her.

They visited the hotel where she was last spotted, and spent days trying to find Agnes, before her body was found two months later.

Ongoing Pain

Agnes’s death has had a lasting influence on her family. Stacey was a baby when she was separated from her mother and will not remember her, but has been traumatized after learning how she died.

“We have been going through moments where she notices something about her mum and she cries,” Njoki shared, “and that’s because of trauma.”

Njoki and her mother, Rose, have carried the heavy burden of Agnes’s death for over a decade. “You just keep on remembering Agnes, about the case, and you just get upset,” she admitted.

“It’s really traumatising, for sure, and depressing, and our hearts have been shattered.”