Police are piecing up evidence that may lead to the details surrounding the mysterious deaths of a Vihiga couple.
Relatives had noted the local chief of the disappearance of the man and his wife Thursday after it emerged that the man, David Kinambendi, 40 did not return from work.
“I was alerted of missing persons on May 23. Kinambendi’s father had told me the son and his wife had not returned home after their day’s work,” said Mr Henry Chunguli, the area Chief.
Locals saw their house was locked and assumed there was nothing sinister in the oddity.
Meanwhile, anxiety was growing when it reached Saturday and the couple could not be traced. Upon peeping into their house through a window, relatives saw the body of Kinambendi’s wife, Ms Ruth Mwenesi, 35 lying in a pool of blood.
“Someone peeped through their bedroom and saw the body of Mwenesi lying down. We broke in and found her in a pool of blood.”
“We suspect he killed his wife and then threw himself into the toilet,” added the Chief.
Distraught, they would break into the house only to find the lady already dead with visible injuries on her body.
Upon conducting a brief search of the compound, the residents found the body of Kinambendi inside a freshly built pit latrine in the compound.
Residents suspect that Kinambendi may have murdered his wife before jumping to his death into the pit latrine.
Police have joined in the investigations to unearth the motive of the suspected murder and suicide incident.
The bodies were transferred to Vihiga County Referral Hospital Mortuary in Mbale awaiting a postmortem analysis.
This comes against a backdrop of a police offensive to drive out criminal gangs in Matungu who have killed at least 14 residents of the area.
Earlier this month, Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr Fred Matiang’i commissioned a contingent of GSU officers in the area to flush out the gangs.
This was followed by a couple of arrests of high-profile politicians in the region.
Former Sports CS Rashid Echesa and Kakamega Senator Cleophas Malala were among those arrested including a local area MCA.
Matungu member of Parliament Justus Murunga has also been questioned by the police over the sustained attacks on residents by the gangs christened 42 brothers.