Kwale: Two women killed in separate attacks

Detectives are investigating two separate incidents in which women were found murdered in the Mackinnon area of Kwale County.

Police said the incidents occurred on April 22, 2026, and the motives have not yet been established.

In the first case, a woman working as a casual labourer at a guest house was found murdered in one of the rooms.

Police said the victim was cleaning and changing bedsheets at the guest house when she was attacked by unknown assailants.

Police further said the assailants also sexually assaulted her.

They allegedly tied her neck using a bedsheet before killing her. Her body was later found lying on the bed with the bedsheet around her neck, long after the murder. Police said the room keys were scattered on the floor.

The body was moved to the mortuary pending an autopsy and investigations.

In a separate incident in the Dumez area, a single mother of a three-year-old boy was found murdered in her house, police said.

The motive of the killing was not immediately known.

Neighbours said they heard the boy crying for attention from the rental house. When they went to check, they found the door locked from inside, forcing them to seek help from the boy on how to open it. It was then that they discovered the body of the woman, aged 30, lying on the floor and half-naked.

Coast Regional Directorate of Criminal Investigations head Benson Kasyoki said police responded to the scene and established that an unknown man had visited the house before the woman was killed earlier.

Police said a packet of condoms was found in the house and that the scene had been disturbed. The assailant is believed to have used a pullover to strangle the woman, which was found tied around her neck. A bruise was also observed on her left knee.

The body was moved to the mortuary pending an autopsy and further investigations into the murder. An operation was also launched in the area to search for the suspected assailant, but was unsuccessful.

The incidents add to what officials said is an increasing number of murders targeting women.

In a separate case, police in Makueni Sub-county have launched investigations into the killing of a 74-year-old man whose body was discovered along a village footpath in Iuani Location.

According to police, the body of Patrick Muema Mulwa was found at Wanziu Village by his relatives. The deceased had reportedly left home the previous evening at about 5:00 p.m. to deliver milk to a nearby centre but did not return. His wife later found him lying in a pool of blood approximately 100 metres from their home.

Police officers who visited the scene established that the deceased had sustained two deep cuts on the head. Blood was also observed oozing from his nose.

Two sticks suspected to have been used as murder weapons were recovered near the body. The motive behind the killing remains unclear. The scene was processed by crime scene investigators, and the body was moved to Makueni Referral Hospital mortuary pending a postmortem examination.