“Why did you call me to come and kill me? I was heading to church.”
“You, my brothers, why do you want to kill me?”
Those were among the final desperate words neighbours say they heard from the house of Agneta Agwata in Egesieri village on the morning of December 30, 2022.
Inside was 47-year-old Ezekiel Nkeere Gitangwa, the headteacher of Getengereirie Primary School. According to the account surrounding his death, the teacher was pleading for his life and asking his attackers to forgive him.
Earlier that morning, Gitangwa had left his home in Nyabite after telling his wife, Gladys Bonareri Achoki, that he was going to serve as the master of ceremonies at a relative’s wedding.
He boarded a boda boda and was dropped off at Egesieri at around 9am.
From there, he walked to Agwata’s house.
She had reportedly called him there.
He entered the house alive. He would never walk out.
A meeting that ended in horror
Agwata, 33, was a nurse at Nyamaiya Health Centre. She had reportedly lost her husband, a Kenya Defence Forces officer.
On that fateful morning, she was allegedly in the house with her boyfriend, Zablon Gekara, an NYS officer.
As the morning progressed, neighbours reportedly heard disturbing sounds coming from the compound.
There was prolonged screaming.
Then came what sounded like a man being beaten.
And finally, the desperate pleas for his life.
“Why did you call me to come and kill me? I was heading to church?”
“You, my brothers, why do you want to kill me?”
Then everything went quiet.
When neighbours later questioned Agwata about the commotion, she reportedly told them that the noise had come from guests celebrating the approaching New Year.
But Gitangwa was no longer alive.
The gruesome discovery
Two days later, on January 1, 2023, police reportedly forced their way into the house.
What they found inside shocked investigators.
Gitangwa’s body was discovered in a room that had been used to keep poultry. It had been covered with a purple carpet.
His hands and legs had reportedly been severed and were found beside his torso.
Plastic bags and gunny sacks lay nearby.
Investigators suspected that those involved had intended to transport and dispose of the body, but whatever plan had been made was never completed.
A post-mortem examination later attributed his death to massive blood loss caused by deep injuries to the back of his head and neck. The mutilation was reportedly carried out after he had already suffered the fatal injuries.
The money trail
As detectives dug deeper, they reportedly discovered suspicious financial activity involving Gitangwa’s phone shortly after his death.
Money was withdrawn through intermediaries, including a boda-boda rider who allegedly received Sh4,000 before returning most of the money, and an M-Pesa agent who was also said to have handled the transaction.
The two intermediaries were subsequently arrested.
But the investigation soon focused on a much bigger financial puzzle.
Detectives established that Gitangwa had taken a loan of approximately Sh2.8 million from a teachers’ Sacco only days before his death.
He was also reportedly indebted to Agwata to the tune of about Sh3 million.
According to the investigation, there had been discussions about purchasing land using money Agwata had received as benefits following the death of her late KDF husband.
However, Gitangwa had allegedly used part of the money for his children’s school fees instead.
That alleged debt, the disputed land transaction and the relationship between the two became central to the investigation into his death.
Then Agwata disappeared
Following the discovery of Gitangwa’s body, Agwata reportedly switched off her phones and disappeared.
Detectives began tracing her movements.
Phone signals allegedly placed her on a route that suggested she was planning to cross into Tanzania before possibly travelling onward to Botswana and Zambia—countries where she had reportedly lived previously.
By the middle of January 2023, investigators had lost her trail.
Zablon also disappeared.
For Gitangwa’s family, the disappearance only deepened the mystery.
His widow, Gladys Achoki, was left to bury her husband while carrying unanswered questions about what had happened inside that house.
A case still haunting the family
The Egesieri house eventually fell silent.
The poultry room where Gitangwa’s body was discovered was cleaned.
The purple carpet was taken as evidence.
But for his family, the memories of that morning remain difficult to erase.
A headteacher had left home expecting to attend a wedding ceremony.
Instead, he walked into a house after receiving a phone call and never came out alive.
His final pleas—asking why he had been called there and begging people he apparently knew not to kill him—remain at the heart of a case that has continued to raise questions.
The most painful question for his family is also the simplest:
What exactly happened inside that house on December 30, 2022—and why have the people they believe were central to the case never faced trial?
