Sarah Wairimu told detectives investigating the 2019 disappearance of her husband, Dutch businessman Tob Cohen, that the 71-year-old was in Thailand while he was listed as a missing person in Nairobi, Kenya, the Daily Nation reported. The claim was made to officers during a search that ended with the discovery of the businessman's body at the couple's home in the capital.
Cohen, a former chief executive of Philips East Africa, had lived and worked in Kenya for decades. He was reported missing in July 2019 after his regular contact with relatives and associates stopped, setting off a search centred on Nairobi, where he lived with Wairimu in Kitisuru, an upmarket suburb of the capital. The couple had been married for more than a decade.
While Cohen was listed as missing, Wairimu told detectives that her husband had travelled to Thailand. Officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations worked the case through the weeks that followed, and Wairimu was taken into custody in August 2019, before the question of the businessman's whereabouts had been answered.
Weeks after the Thailand claim was made to investigators, the answer emerged at the couple's own compound. On September 13, 2019, Cohen's body was found in an underground septic tank within the grounds of the Kitisuru residence.
