When he appeared on a local television station (Citizen TV) for an interview, he was calm, barely breaking a sweat as he eulogised his late boss, former finance minister Tom Fred Mokaya Osinde.
Not an iota of remorse… emotions masked…
He had just arrived from the interior, having finished his days off… nothing suggested otherwise until detectives investigating the gruesome murder of the former Treasury official began to piece together an intelligence report.
Casual labourer Julius Mogoi, 33, was chosen. Many thought it was routine procedure for investigators to question those who knew and were with the ex-Treasury official.
But the suspect’s latest confession to senior detectives has exposed the shrewd worker who investigators say may have been privy to the elaborate murder plan hatched in deep secrecy.
Detectives, mainly from the Homicide Squad, now treat Mogoi as the prime suspect in the murder of his boss.
A ruthlessly executed detour that saw the body dumped in the Kuja River in Migori and an abandoned vehicle was supposed to throw investigators off the scent and lead them on a wild goose chase.
But the mean-looking, skinny Mogoi literally let the cat out of the bag – according to revelations by top detectives.
His dark past, according to those close to him, suggests that he has mysteriously secured his freedom despite an active murder case in court.
How he did it is still a mystery, but the casual labourer found his way into the palatial home and managed to secure employment.
There was little to write home about Mogoi until last month when he was arrested by detectives and taken to Menengai police station for questioning over the bizarre murder of his boss.
His revelations have captured the attention of the country.
His questionable past was kept under wraps.
Close relatives who spoke to the Nation.Africa in confidence allege that Mogoi once defrauded his cousin of Sh100,000 and disappeared into thin air, only to reappear last month driving a top-of-the-range car. A sign of affluence.
The 33-year-old’s past crimes have drawn the ire of his distraught fellow villagers, who want the law to take its course.
They were tired of offering wise counsel.
“He could not be advised. We don’t want to see him,” said one villager, Elishafan Kibagendi.
As detectives continue to unravel the murder syndicate, residents of the remote village of Nyakeyo in South Mugirango, Kisii County, want the shocking killings to be brought to an end and the perpetrators punished.
The little-known village is at the centre of national attention, albeit in an unfortunate way.
Villagers are keeping their ears to the ground as more revelations come to light.
Mogoi attended Nyakeyo Primary School in South Mugirango, and his former colleagues say he was a below-average student, but somehow managed to reach Grade 7 before dropping out.
“We studied together at Nyakeyo Primary School where he was a below average student,” said a resident who studied with him.
At school, he regularly fought with teachers and once tried to beat up his maths teacher, who was also his class teacher.
Mogoi also threatened to kill his mother before fleeing his home in Kisii.
He fell out with his parents after trying to sell some of their ancestral land.
According to detectives investigating Osinde’s murder, Mogoi drove his boss’s luxury car to his home in Nyakeo immediately after dumping his lifeless body in the river.
He arrived at the house late at night.
It was the first time the suspect had been seen at her home in three years, when he fled after an incident in which he tried to murder his mother with a machete.
“On the same night that we believe the body of the deceased was thrown into the Gucha River, he made the rounds in his village and shared a cup of tea with his fellow villagers before leaving,” revealed a detective attached to the DCI.
“But before he left the village, he asked some boys to wash his boss’s car but told them to do it from the outside only. He told them it was clean inside,” the informant added.
The Nation understands that Osinde’s car will undergo forensic tests to establish who was the last person to handle it.
When the vehicle was abandoned in Trans Mara West in the Kilgoris area, an attempt was made to set it on fire but it failed.
The person who abandoned the vehicle, who investigators now believe to be Mogoi, the prime suspect in the murder, then removed the vehicle’s registration plates and battery before fleeing.
The battery and registration numbers have since been recovered from his home in Kisii.
An autopsy conducted on the body of the slain ex-Treasury official revealed that he was slashed to death.
Chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor revealed that he had been slashed twice on the head, with one cut going through the back of the head and severing the spinal cord at the C7 level.
The C7 segment of the spinal cord bears the primary load from the weight of the head and supports the lower part of the neck.
The other cut went through the right side of the head, fracturing the skull and injuring the brain.
He died of blows to the head with injuries to the brain.
Detectives say the autopsy will guide their investigation as they try to unravel the murder mystery.
Homicide detectives from the Forensic and Crime Scene Investigation Department have visited his home in Ngata several times, as well as Kisii and Migori, where his body was found.
Osinde was last seen alive at his home before his mysterious disappearance on Sunday 18 June 2023.
His body was later recovered from the Kuja River and deposited at a mortuary in Migori, where it remained for seven days unbeknownst to his distraught family.
The body is being kept at a mortuary in Nakuru awaiting burial at his home in Ngata and was last week transferred from Kisii to a mortuary in Nakuru.
