Missing girl gave friends two phone numbers in case anything happened to her

Mystery surrounds the rising number of missing persons, particularly women, in Nairobi County. The latest case is that of Wilkister Ososo, a 27-year-old hawker who was reported missing on June 19 at Mukuru Kwa Reuben. There are fears of a possible connection to the infamous Kware murders.

Her friend, Roseline Atieno, told The Nairobian that she had last spoken to Wilkister on June 16 when she came to buy a samosa.

“She left for work but quickly returned to give her caretaker and neighbour two phone numbers, an Airtel and Safaricom one. She asked them to use these if anything happened to her,” Atieno said.

Atieno recounted that she tried calling the number, but it was switched off. Later, she received a call from a man claiming that Ososo had been arrested and was being held at Thika Police Station.

Atieno presented herself at the police station, but the person who had contacted her was nowhere to be found, and neither was her friend. She had instinctively recorded the phone call for further identification of the caller in case she didn’t meet the man, who had claimed he was a police officer at the station.

The officers at the station’s reception desk claimed the caller was not a policeman at the station, saying the voice recording did not match that of any officer there.

Atieno filed a missing person’s report at the police station in Kiambu County two days after efforts to reach Ososo proved futile.

“There is nothing as disturbing as not knowing where a person is. If one dies, much as it is sad, one has time to mourn and move on, but disappearance is a different experience altogether,” Atieno said.

She added that efforts to trace her friend through the police have hit a dead end and now fears something bad may have happened to her.

Celine Ososo, Atieno’s mother, recalled her final conversation with her daughter. The exchange took place on the morning of June 6, when Celine called to check on her child.

“Wilkister never failed to check on her child every morning. This time round, however, she didn’t call or text for two days, something that was very unusual. Her child kept calling until the day Atieno called on June 22 to give us the news,” she said.

Celine says she learned from Atieno that there was a mysterious man her daughter was dating in Thika Town who she was very secretive about.

Despite obtaining an Occurrence Book (OB) number at Kware Police Station, the mother expressed frustration at the lack of progress in the case.

“Nothing promising has been done, yet the police keep saying they are tracking the phone, but it seems they are just playing around,” she said.

Celine described her distressing visit to the city mortuary, where the bodies of Kware murder victims were kept pending autopsy. She and others couldn’t identify any bodies due to severe decomposition.

Affected families were to receive DNA test results at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters on July 16, but the ongoing Gen Z protests made it difficult.