Veronica Muthoni, the only woman among those who perished in the Nakuru chopper tragedy, had spoken to her father, David Gachuki, a day before the accident.
Muthoni, a staunch Jubilee supporter, told his father that she would be attending a Jubilee rally in Narok County, but he was not aware she was traveling by air until the news of the accident.
Her mother, Jane Gachuki, collapsed after the news, escalating her blood pressure, but later said that her daughter had been looking for a job aligned to the Catering certificate course she had studied at the Rift Valley Institute of Science and Technology where she graduated in 2016 and was working as an intern at a Nakuru car bazaar.
After the fateful day, a relative and friend told The Nairobian that he felt uncomfortable when her name was mentioned as “she had a close connection with some of the victims on the plane” and that “I called her severally but her phone was off, so, I decided to contact her friends whom she had told me she would go out with the previous night and that’s when I realized she was the one.’’
The relative, however, clarifies that ‘Minji Minji’ as she was nicknamed was not dating one of the other male victims “for some months before the accident but not exactly the pilot.”
Dissatisfied with the catering course, Muthoni enrolled for a short secretarial course at Trachom College in Nakuru and briefly worked in one of the law firms in Nakuru as an administrator but lost her job barely two months before the accident.
“Veronica didn’t have a job and since she could not cater for her expenses she moved in with a friend as she searched for jobs but I know she had already joined the president’s Rift Valley campaign team,’’ said the family member, adding that her death was a big blow as she was ‘the loyal daughter’ to the family in Kabatini village, within Bahati constituency where attended St Anthony Secondary school.
