Mortuary staff defend funeral home in battle over late Timothy Mwandi Muumbo's lost heart

A mortuary assistant and a mortician have told the court that the Lee Funeral Home has nothing to do with former Nairobi Provincial Police Chief Timothy Mwandi Muumbo’s 600-gram heart.

In statement filed on Monday, Achochi Ongori and Paul Chege denied the funeral home had anything to do with the missing organ.

The two were responding to a case filed by Muumbo’s children, Johnstone Kassim Muumbo, Alex Munyasa Muumbo, and Carolyn Muumbo. They sued the funeral home, former government pathologist Moses Njue, Dr Peter Ndegwa, their siblings Billy Mbuvi and Mwinzi Muumbo, and the Inspector General of Police.

On Tuesday, Kassim told the court he was considering dropping out of the case.

On June 2, 2015, the 87-year-old man was rushed to the Nairobi Hospital and was pronounced dead and transferred to the Lee Funeral Home.

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However, there was suspicion on the cause of his death. Although pathologists concluded that he died of heart attack, some of his children alleged foul play. They claimed he was poisoned.

In their testimony, Ongori and Chege claimed the heart was handed to Dr Njue on June 25, 2015. However, Njue died in 2023.

“Present during the postmortem exercise was a fellow mortician, Paul Chege, a government doctor called Dr Peter Ndegwa and a private doctor called Dr Moses Njue on behalf of the family and another individual unknown to me,” he said.

According to the mortuary assistant, he later learned that the person was Dr Njue’s son. A police constable by the name Biko, the investigating officer, was also present.

He narrated that Ndegwa then took samples for toxicology examination at the Government Chemist.

Njue requested that he takes the whole heart for further analysis.

“Under Dr Njue’s instructions, I packed the heart in a polythene paper as there were no containers big enough to hold the heart. I then sealed it and placed it in an empty glove box and handed it over to my colleague Paul Chege for refrigeration,” he said.

According to him, the postmortem ended at around 8pm.

He said it is normal for doctors to take a whole organ for further examination.  He, however, asserted that it is not necessary to tell the family that a doctor has withheld an organ as it could delay burial plans.

Ongori said he was then assigned another duty in Kiambu the following day and did not know whether Njue was handed the heart.

On September 21, 2015, Ongori said Chege called him to inform him that there was a second postmortem and the heart was missing.

The missing heart was part of a long-running battle before the criminal magistrate court. Muumbo stayed in the mortuary for five years as the family battled over his burial place and where the organ was.

The court acquitted Njue and his son. However, the constitutional case continues.

Chege, who was a witness during Njue’s trial, narrated how he handed the heart to Njue’s assistance.

When the doctors realised the heart was missing during the second autopsy,   Njue said he could not remember taking the samples, and that they had to remind him that the autopsy had been done on a Thursday as the doctor allegedly insisted that it was on a weekend and he was not around Nairobi.

Chege claimed that Njue stated that he would confirm if the samples were taken to his school in Thika.

The case will be heard on July 22.