Nothing had been touched in Joshua Mungai's single room since his death on April 21.

A few of his clothes remained scattered on two tiny mattresses put together on the floor where the 28-year-old used to sleep.

Milka Nyabae, Mungai's mother, hopes that when she gets closure one day, she will clean the room and probably give out some of his son's belongings.

"I have never once entered this room since my son was killed. The lock that I used to lock his door locked my heart too," a tearful Nyabae said.

For Mungai's aunt Esther Gathoni, who was the last family member to see him alive and healthy and the first to see him beaten and left for dead, a gruesome picture remains stamped in her mind.

"Whenever I close my eye, I see Mungai lying in the bush, flies crowded on his mouth and eyes. He could not lift his hands to drive them off. If he didn't blink, I would have thought him dead," Gathoni said.

Nyabae said his son was a humble, quiet boy who loved peace. According to his kin, Mungai loved peace so much that many times, he opted to apologise for mistakes that were not his to avoid confrontation.

"He was very quick to apologise when he did wrong, but he would do it even when he was right but the opponent wasn't relenting," Nyabae said.

Even though the family buried Mungai two weeks ago at the Lang'ata cemetery, they said they have yet to move on and believe that they will only find closure after the people accused of killing their son are punished.

"Justice is a good step towards finding healing, we pray that the accused people are sent to jail. The suspects are so feared but for the first time, people are talking about him, though in hush tones," the mother said.

On the day he was found dead, Gathoni said the boy, who was a tout on the Ongata Rongai- Galleria route, had left the house shortly after 9pm.

"He was here after work and even had dinner with us before he left. All he said was that he was going to pick something at the Tumaini Stage nearby," he said.

Mungai did not return home that night—unbeknownst to the family who all live together in a gated compound—until Gathoni, who works at Ole Kasasi health facility, received a call asking if she knew a Joshua Mungai.

"My nephew was named after our elder brother; therefore, when the caller, a colleague, asked if I Knew a Joshua Mungai, I assumed it was my brother," Gathoni explained.

"She did not tell me what had happened but only asked me to go to a certain place where I would find him."

She said she only realised that it was her nephew after he phoned the elder brother. No one had seen her nephew after he left that night.

"I was perturbed to see my nephew lying in the bushes near Tuala Bridge on the outskirts of Ongata Rongai. Flies buzzed around his mouth and eyes but, he remained still, only blinking once in a while," she said tearfully.

A good Samaritan in a tuk-tuk offered to help her take the boy to Saitoti Health Centre where first aid was administered before he was referred to Mbagathi Hospital then Kenyatta National Hospital.

"We admitted him to Kenyatta on Tuesday. I did not even have Sh5,500 that was required, but the hospital, through the social work programme, waived half of it," said Mungai's mother.

The mother said she was not able to visit his son on Wednesday as she did not have any money for transport. On Thursday, she went to the hospital at dawn, only to be told Mungai had died the previous day.

"A friend gave me Sh200, which I used as fare to Kenyatta on Thursday early morning. His bed was empty, everything had been cleared," she recounted tearfully.

Nyabae said the hospital authorities informed her that her son had died at 8pm on Wednesday.

"I lost my mind. The last thing he said to me as I was leaving was: 'Mama are you leaving me here alone?' I told him I had to go," she said.

While undergoing treatment, Nyabae said his son who was able to speak, albeit with difficulties, kept repeating that he was in so much pain. He said a police officer known to him had beaten him together with three others.

The main suspect in the incident, Constable Edwin Oscar Okimaru, is detained for seven days pending investigations.

Okimaru was arraigned on Monday in Milimani, Nairobi, where the police sought more days to hold him before he is charged.

He was accused together with another officer based in Ongata Rongai of assaulting Mungai and two other residents only identified as Njenga and George, during a curfew operation.

Mungai suffered injuries and died two days after he was admitted to the hospital.

Okimaru was arrested on Friday after preliminary investigations by the DCI Homicide branch, Cybercrime and Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau forensically placed him at the scene of the murder.

The officer's workstation is in Moyale and the circumstances under which he is alleged to have conducted an operation in his former station at Ongata Rongai is not clear.

Forensic analysis conducted concurred with eyewitnesses' accounts that Mungai died from chest injuries due to blunt trauma.

A post-mortem revealed that he had suffered nine broken ribs, fractured spinal code, wrist bones and his chest was filled with water, consistent with the report that they had been thrown inside a river after being tortured.

The family only hopes for justice, which they believe will accord them closure.

The Star/ Akello Odenyo