'Always Call Me Baba Grace!' Father Of Butchered JKUAT Girl Cried At Her Requiem Mass

Piece by: Grace Kerongo
Lifestyle

On Thursday (09/02/17), Grace Nduta Mwaura smiled down from her portrait at family and friends assembled for her memorial service at Kahawa Sukari Deliverance Church. Grace was butchered by her brother and her body parts dumped in various places one of which was in a latrine at the family home in Kahawa Sukari .

Grace, an Engineering student at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology was found dismembered and disemboweled after she was reported missing for days.

Her brother, Charles Kibe Mwaura, 24, is accused of murdering her on or about January 25.

This followed a quarrel over a bowl of Weetabix cereal. He is in police custody awaiting trial.

Now her father Elizaphan Mwaura Kibe is mourning the loss of both a daughter — whom he called his best friend — and a son.

The Star reports that when her father Elizaphan rose to give his tribute, his solid frame looked frail and his voice quivered.

He had last seen his daughter on the day she died, when she helped him pack his swimming gear, he recalled painfully. One could see his tears as he peered through his glasses. His wife, standing next to him, wept openly.

But when Kibe opened the written tribute to his daughter, his voice failed him.

He waved his friend, Simon Ngige, over to read the letter, only allowing speaking a brief farewell: “Always call me Baba, Grace,” he said to her.

That’s the way he would want to be addressed as a way of keeping his daughter’s memory alive.

Mwaura spoke of his close relationship with Grace and the memories he will treasure.

“You were not only my daughter but my best friend,” the letter read.

Victoria Gakii, a fellow Engineering student, remembered Nduta as a caring person who was full of life, hardworking and a committed Christian.

Ironically, the only statement that made any direct reference of the man accused of killing his sister was made by their father.

“I remember one time at the Coast,” Mwaura said, as though addressing Grace directly. “You made such delicious food that your brother took three portions.”

The pain of that loss will endure and family and friends will struggle to understand how their understand how their son turned against his own blood.