Taxi driver linked to Eastleigh woman’s murder, suspected to have disposed of remains

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) is trying to establish whether taxi driver Jared Mongare dumped remains of the Eastleigh woman who went missing before a skeleton suspected to be hers was found dumped at the Langata cemetery.

In an affidavit filed at the Makadara Law Courts, detective constable Vincent Langat said CCTV footage obtained from the Valley Heights apartments in Lavington, Nairobi, where Deka Abdinoor Gorane is suspected to have been killed captures Mongare visiting the premises frequently.

The deceased had lived at the Valley Heights Apartments with murder suspect Hashim Muhumed.

DCI says Mongare had assisted the deceased and her suspected killer in renting the short-stay rental premises and besides visiting Deka as confirmed by the CCTV footage, Mongare was also communicating with her through the phone. DCI team visited the premises on November 6 and documented the house.

The team collected exhibits including items suspected to belong to the deceased and a panga suspected to be the murder weapon among other things and Langat says the team established that the deceased was killed between October 29 and October 31, 2024.

The car Mongare was using in his various visits to the house has been traced to Desai Civil Servants apartment in Ngara and towed to DCI headquarters' exhibits yard.

"The respondent's (Mongare's) motor vehicle registration number KDD 737Q is yet to be subjected to forensic investigations to establish if it was used in disposal of the deceased' remains," stated Langat.

But the detective said preliminary investigations established that Mongare facilitated murder suspect Hashim Muhumed and the deceased in renting the short-stay rental – accommodation on October 25.

The DCI believes Deka had lived with Hashim at the premises at the Valley Heights Apartments for close to a week.

Her remains were dumped at the cemetery together with her personal belongings including clothes.

The clothes recovered next to the remains corroborated the DCI investigations as are the same she is captured by the CCTV footage wearing at the premises.

CCTV images of Deka Abdinoor (top), whose remains were discovered on October 31 at Lang'ata Cemetery, and her suspected killer Hashim Dagane Muhumed (bottom right). (Photo: Handout)

Langat said preliminary investigations established that Mongare facilitated the two to get vacation accommodation at the Valley Heights in Lavington, Nairobi on October 25, 2024.

"The respondent (Mongare) thereafter was frequently visiting the suspect at the apartment where he was being sent for errands until the human remains suspected to be those of Deka were discovered," Langat stated in the affidavit.

The remains were dumped alongside Deka's items which upon investigations and analysis led the detectives to the apartments in Lavington where she lived. DNA analysis is yet to be done to ascertain whether the remains belong to Deka.

The detective says Mongare visited the house on the day Deka is suspected to have been killed and investigators have not had time to visit various places where Mongare visited around the time the deceased was murdered to conduct a search and possibly make recoveries.

The detective made the revelation before Senior Principal magistrate Mary Njagi seeking orders to detain the suspect at the Muthaiga police station for 21 days. The orders were granted and Mongare will be presented in court on December 9.

Deka was reported missing at the California police station in Eastleigh, Kamukunji Sub County on October 23 vide Occurrence Book (OB) 60/23/10/2024.

A skeleton and bones believed to be her remains were later found wrapped in a polythene bag and dumped at the public cemetery on October 31. The deceased's bones were recovered wrapped in a polythene bag.