08/06/2007
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Hunt on for leads in murders
sent by Kuria-Mwangi
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Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer
POWDER SPRINGS - Authorities said Friday that the bodies of a widowed
Kenyan immigrant and her two daughters who were killed Wednesday at their
Powder Springs home wouldn't be released to family until next week.
Autopsies on the three women were completed Thursday, but police are keeping
an airtight lid on how Jane Kuria, 46, and her daughters, Isabela Kuria,
19, and Annabelle Kuria, 16, died.
"We are not releasing cause or manner of death because investigators say
it's a very vital part of the investigation," Cobb Police Department spokesman
Sgt. Dana Pierce said Friday.
Pierce said detectives
are investigating Ms. Kuria's ties to her native Kenya and are examining
every facet of the women's lives for leads in the murder investigation.
"We'll be looking at race, religion, culture, phone records, immigration
documents, the whole nine yards," he said. "We'll look at the whole gamut
of the people's lives."
The three women were found dead in their ranch-style home at 4789 Country
Cove Way off Shipp Road north of Florence Road and C.H. James Parkway Wednesday
morning. Ms. Kuria's son, Jeremy Kuria, 7, and Peter Thande, a 10-year-old
cousin, were found in the home unconscious, but alive.
They were taken to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Scottish Rite,
where Jeremy remains in critical condition while Peter was reported in
fair condition on Friday.
Pierce vowed that investigators would follow up on any and all leads police
receive, and have posted several tip lines for people to call. He said information
would be "held in the strictest of confidence."
On Friday, Cobb Police released a toll-free number for people to share
information with investigators: 1-888-322-8884.
Other than a plea for tips that might lead to a break in the case, the
only new information police released Friday was a family photograph of Ms.
Kuria and her two daughters and 7-year-old son.
Family members who hope to fly the bodies back to Kenya have set up the Jane Kuria Memorial Fund at Bank of America to help pay for burial costs and medical bills for the two boys.
Ms. Kuria's lawyer, Charles H. Kuck, said Ms. Kuria was seeking asylum in the U.S., but a judge recently denied her application. Hearings on her two daughters' asylum cases were scheduled for Aug. 29, Kuck said.
Kuck, an Atlanta immigration attorney, was representing Ms. Kuria in her appeal.
Ms. Kuria immigrated to the United States with her three children in 2001. Kuck said she didn't want her daughters to experience the horror of female circumcision that she endured as an adolescent.
"She was definitely afraid to go back to Kenya, but she wasn't afraid to live here," Kuck said.
Even though Kuck said Ms. Kuria feared a return to Kenya, he does not think her death has anything to do with her asylum case. He said there is no indication that people who would harm her had infiltrated Atlanta's Kenyan community.
"She was a very sweet woman, and a hero in many ways," he said.
Kuck said he has spoken with Cobb police and shared all his case information with them to help "catch whoever committed this heinous crime."
Pierce would not comment specifically when asked if Ms. Kuria's fear of female circumcision of her daughters played a role in Wednesday's murders.
"It's another lead and another bit of information," Pierce said.
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