Three women sensationally turned up yesterday at the Nairobi CID headquarters and laid claim on some of Archbishop Deya’s “miracle babies.”
And yesterday Police took blood samples for DNA tests from the three women as a pregnancy test for one of the woman who claimed to have been miraculously pregnant turned negative.
Last night Police Spokesman Jasper Ombati confirmed that detectives are trying to establish a match between the women and three of the eleven children that are currently being held at a Nairobi children’s home.
The women said they were able to identify their children from TV and newspaper pictures whom they claim were stolen. However, details remained scant last night. But Mr Ombati said this could prove to be an important turn in a saga that has left Kenyans bewildered and groping for answers. A DNA match on the three woman and the children they are claiming to be theirs could instantly demolish the Deya miracle babies claim and quickly switch focus to allegations of child trafficking that the police were up to yesterday tentatively holding onto as a possible line of future investigations.
Following this new twist, Mrs Mary Deya, the wife of the London-based preacher was being sought by detectives to assist them with information on where the miracle babies were born.
A doctor alleged to be the proprietor of the clinics where the “miracle babies” were born has also been questioned by police in Nairobi.
Dr Danson Njoroge, was questioned about the ownership of the clinics and whether the 13 babies were born at the back street clinics. At the same time, Mrs Odera’s pregnancy test turned out negative at one of the government institutions.
The babies’ mother who had gone public that she was pregnant two weeks after giving birth, got a rude shock yesterday morning when detectives took her to a health facility for the test to ascertain the truth.
Eddah who is now 56 years old, looked nervous immediately after handing over samples for the test to doctors at the health facility.
The urine sample was sent to the laboratory and analyzed for what health experts termed Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) or the pregnancy hormone.
The hormone is measured in terms of quantity per cubic centimeter of urine. It is detected with a test that uses specialized antibodies. These substances clot with the HCG molecules. When this does not happen, the test is deemed negative. It is this reaction that makes the test strip turn color in over-the-counter pregnancy tests.
Doctors prefer the morning urine since it is highly concentrated.
The woman and her husband Michael Odera who were arrested on Tuesday morning at their Komarock Sector 3A house, have been leading the detectives to clinics and offices alleged to have handled the babies when they were born.
The officers attached to CID department, returned to the couple’s house yesterday morning to search for the babies’ identification documents.
They ransacked the whole house that was guarded by one of Odera’s nephews in vain.
At the CID headquarters, Daniel Ochieng of Mama Lucy clinic in Nairobi’s Eastlands area was still being interrogated.
Ochieng who has been operating the clinic as a doctor cum administrator, is said to have maintained that the babies were not born there as alleged by the Oderas.
But an administrator cum nurse at another clinic allegedly owned by Njoroge, said the doctor did not hand over to her the previous year’s patients’ records when she was employed early this year.
And in a telephone interview, Mrs Mary Deya who claims to have prayed for Eddah to give birth to the babies, maintained that they were “miracle babies.”
“Those working at the clinics are lying that the babies were not born there. They are doing this for fear of being humiliated by police,” she said.
Deya who said she was busy fasting and praying at an undisclosed place within the city, said only three of the Oderas’ children did not have birth certificates.