Family's desperate search for justice

Dec 26, 2014

The family of Esther Ddamulira is still tongue-tied and unable to comprehend the tragedy which struck them last month.


By Charles Etukuri

The family of Esther Ddamulira is still tongue-tied and unable to comprehend the tragedy which struck them on November 25.


They were later notified that she had been murdered.

 Now they wait, hoping that the authorities will follow up the case, arrest the suspects and that justice would be meted to whoever killed her.

Ddamulira was a businesswoman, running a stationery shop at EM Plaza on Kampala Road. Her relatives described her as a hardworking, loving, generous and God-fearing woman. Ddamulira was living at Kyebando in her sister’s home, taking care of her children. Her sister is in Sweden working as a nurse.

On the fateful day, Ddamulira woke up early and prepared the children for church. She then received a call from an unidentified person. The person said they wanted to see her urgently and discuss business.

Her family says at around 11:00pm she called one of the children and told them mugalewo mwebake byenagenderede biwanvuye meaning “Close the door and sleep, what I had gone to do has taken longer.”

By Monday morning, she had not returned. She had promised to go with one of her nephews who was applying for a visa at the American embassy.

He tried to call her, but her phone was not answered, which was unusual.

The nephew then decided to call his mother who stays in Mityana, but the mother calmed him down, saying maybe she was busy and that she would call him later.

The nephew also tried calling her close friends and relatives to ask whether they had seen her or if she had told them where she was going.

The following day, the nephew, now worried, called his mother. The children she was looking after were scared about her absence. Her phone was still ringing, but nobody answered it. As they went to sleep on that Tuesday, they kept hoping she would turn up.

“On Wednesday morning, we had a family meeting and decided to report her disappearance to the Police so that they could help us with investigating a case of a missing person. The case was immediately reported to Kira Road Police Station. The Police was reluctant and the officer at the station told us it was still too early and that she may turn up,” a member of the family, who is still living in fear of the killers, said.

Her phone was still on, giving the family hope that she would return.


Illustrating the key events
(By Danny Barongo)
 


Ddamulira receives a call from someone claiming they want to do business with her


Relatives, on the advice of the Police, find Ddamulira’s body at the city mortuary


The Police inform the family that they found Ddamulira’s body dumped in Kakiri

 


Ddamulira’s relatives visit the Police but are not satisfied with the pace of investigations


On Thursday, we still continued calling different relatives. The family tried to contact their friends in security to try and track down her number.

They then placed announcements on radios and put up posters.

“On Friday morning, we went back to the Police and gave them details and all the steps we had taken in trying to find her. One of the officers told us that the first place we should have gone to is the mortuary. None of us wanted to even think of that at the time,” the family member says.

They decided to heed his advice and got a letter from the Police introducing them to the mortuary attendants.

On Saturday morning, the family proceeded to the Kampala City mortuary and started the search.

“One of us was allowed into the mortuary as the others waited outside. He found two unclaimed bodies in the refrigerator,” a family member says.

He came running towards the family members and told them that Ddamulira’s body was one of those in the fridge.

Details in the arrival book indicated that she had been brought in by Kakiri Police.

Some of the family members remained behind, while others went to Kakiri Police Station to find out the details.

At Kakiri, the family was told that the Police had picked the body naked and dumped in River Mayanja and that they had been called by residents who had failed to identify the body.

Ddamulira had a deep wound at the back of the head, which is suspected to have been caused by a blow from a hammer. She also had a cut on the forehead and another on the left thigh. She looked like she had been strangled and had rope marks on her wrists indicating that the she had been tied.

Family members suspect that she was also raped by her assassins. They believe that she might have been killed by the person who called her that Sunday morning and the murder could have been because of a business deal gone sour.

Sources told Sunday Vision that some people owed her money. She had intimated to a workmate that a deal she had invested a lot of money in was taking long to materialise.

The family told Sunday Vision that they have been frustrated by Kakiri Police.

“Every time we go there to follow up on the case, we are asked for facilitation and this is draining us financially. Efforts to try and secure the phone printouts to find out who the caller was have also been frustrating,” a member of the family says.

All the family is seeking for now is justice. They also want to know the reason why she was killed and who did it.

Ddamulira was buried on December 1 at Kabawala in Nakifuma district.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});