After going missing for over two months, Thika-based millionaire businessman Julius Gitau was on Sunday found at his third wife’s house.
Police reports indicate that they picked his phone’s signal while calling his third wife, Selina Nelly who happens to be a police officer based in Thika.
The businessman popularly known as Gitau wa Mali told police that he was abducted and held in captivity for the last 11 weeks at a place where he later identified as Kamwangi in Gatundu North constituency.
He told police that his captors freed him on Saturday when he went to Nelly’s home from where police confirmed his presence before asking him to present himself before DCI officers in Gatanga.
By his narration, Gitau told the police that he was abducted on September 21 near Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) offices in Thika. He had left for his general wholesalers’ shop in Thika town in the company of his third wife but later decided to go to the gym.
But it is on his way to the gym that he was allegedly abducted by gunmen who forced him to take a soda which made him pass out.
When he woke up, he was in a big hall inside a building where he became a labourer for 11 weeks
“I was made to wash clothes and utensils for the tenants. Once in a while, I was ordered to clean the compound,” Gitau’s statement to the police reads according to Daily Nation.
Interestingly, he says he cannot pick the location of this place because he had been living in the servant quarters all through and none of his family members were asked for ransom.
Asked how he was released, he said that he was forced to leave early Saturday morning in the company of two heavily built men who escorted him outside the premises and warned him not to look back.
“We walked for hours before entering a forest. The men then told me to continue walking and never look back,” he said.
“I later found myself on a dusty road. I was lucky because a boda boda appeared almost immediately.”
He added that the rider gave him his phone to call his family and later helped him board a matatu to Thika. From this call, he traced the location as Kamwangi.
He then went to Nelly’s home where he spent the night before the police picked his phone’s signal.
Now, Gatanga police led by the DCI boss John Kanda said his story is not believable but are investigating it to the end.
Kanda said that as they await to question him further, they let him seek medical attention and counselling services as he appeared traumatized.
Before his disappearance, Gitau who built his multi-million empire from hawking is said to have been sinking into debts worth millions.
Gitau is also said to have made poor financial decisions when taking his loans.
Police are now establishing if he intentionally went missing to escape the wrath of his debtor who had been camping at his wholesale before he disappeared.
