A nine-year-old girl would go missing after leaving her mother's home. Two days later her dismembered, mutilated and "boiled" remains would be found in a dried riverbed. The nature of the crime caused many, even the police to seriously consider witchcraft or occult-based motives.
(A very short case I found during my research in my attempt to write one write-up from every country or at least as most as I can)
Cheryl Avihe Ujaha was born on January 28, 2009, in Manchester, United Kingdom and soon moved with her mother back to Katutura, a suburb of Windhoek, Namibia with her mother when she was only three months old. She was described by those who knew her as talkative, strong, smart always getting high grades in school and able to care for herself despite her young age. Her father lived away from home, still in the United Kingdom and was scheduled to eventually move to the UK and live with him.
On August 26, 2018, Cheryl woke up early that morning to go outside and play with the other neighbourhood children. After an hour she was called back home where she changed, bathed and ate breakfast for that morning. Cheryl, as mentioned above was able to care for, she was left home alone while her mother left the home for her job, delivering food she had cooked to her customers. After four hours her mother returned home to see Cheryl missing.
She assumed that Cheryl went back outside to play with her friends and decided to rest and get some sleep. When her rest was over, Cheryl still wasn't home so she headed outside and asked about her to all the neighbours. Only one of them had seen her when she dropped by one of the houses to ask if she could play with her friend. That friend was away that day so she left, she later saw Cheryl playing with some of the other kids but beyond that, that was it. Her mother then went back home and began calling her friends, relatives, teachers and Cheryl's principal who was also her aunt. Her aunt did call to ask if she could drop by the house to pick up the food herself and Cheryl did answer but said her mother wasn't home.
After this phone call, everyone now grew considered and banded together in an attempt to look for and find Cheryl. As the police said a report couldn't be filed until after 24 hours, they all went to social media to alert the public to Cheryl's disappearance themselves. By August 27, 24 hours had passed so the police joined in on the search and likewise appealed to the public for any information that could lead to them finding Cheryl but to no avail.
On August 28, a man was walking alongside a road from Katutura to Khomasdal. During his walk, he stopped once in Staanvas next to a dried river bed and some bushes. In the bushes, he saw a group of dismembered body parts. At first he he thought they belonged to a burnt doll but so ran away to call for help. After more pedestrians arrived they confirmed what the passerby had seen and called the police.
The police arrived and examined the body in much greater detail. The dismembered remains had been mutilated and severed into many different pieces with a few of them missing. One of the first oddities the police took note of was the lack of any bags, cases, containers or boxes to carry the body parts in, it was just the remains with nothing else. The area was also very spaced out and open with the trees spread out far and wide so the killer likely killed the victim elsewhere and disposed of them in this location.
"A substance" was found on the ground near to the body and marks were found on the body and the remains appeared to be wet indicating they may have been boiled. The missing body parts consisted of both hands, lower arms, one foot, ribs, one thigh and the neck.
The head was among the remains discovered and a piece of tape was put over the mouth but aside from that the body parts were naked with no clothing found. The remains belonged to a female child with braided hair, her remains were found only 2 kilometres away from Cheryl's home and relatively fresh having yet to decompose. News of the discovery soon reached Cheryl's family who rushed to the area but were turned away by police who were still in the middle of collecting the remains at the time. Her family was finally invited to view the body parts after they were brought to a morgue and they identified the remains as Cheryl.
No signs of forced entry were found at the home and no neighbours reported any struggles or kidnapping attempts in the street or overall anything out of the ordinary at all, so police believed initially that Cheryl may have known her killer. While the police were pursuing this lead, the general public began to suspect that witchcraft was the motive, more specifically a "muti killing" based on how the body was found.
Muti or Ritual Killings are a type of ritual-based killing usually occurring in Africa where a victim, usually a young children are murdered and dismembered for their body parts which can be used in traditional healing or a belief that it will bring good fortune with the killer usually working on behalf of a client or sponsor. Some countries like Gabon even had sitting senators caught commissioning a muti killing. After the police didn't officially announce any investigations into a muti-killing angle, even saying they were mistaken about the body parts being boiled, many Namibian politicians used Cheryl's murder as a reason to advocate for harsher punishments for anyone suspected of being involved in witchcraft-related practices and for the public to be more aware of muti-killings.
The police questioned a number of people including Cheryl's friends, acquaintances and relatives but ultimately none of them were even suspects or had worthwhile information they could provide to the police. After a lack of any leads from who they questioned, they decided to seek leads elsewhere. First, an award of 110,000 Namibian Dollars was offered for anyone who could provide information but the reward went unclaimed. Secondly, DNA samples were obtained from the scene so they sent their samples to a lab in South Africa but the results came back likewise with no leads. Their last idea was as follows. Since Cheryl was found naked and her clothing never recovered, the police published an artist's recreation of Cheryl and the clothes she was wearing and asked members of the public if they saw anyone matching this description. Still, no one came forward.
The official investigation stalled after a week with no leads or suspects and by 2020 at the time of the latest updates, the police announced that they had no leads.
Sources
https://www.namibian.com.na/katuturas-most-foul-murder/
https://www.pressreader.com/namibia/new-era/20190828/281526522721506
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/cheryl-killing-top-cop-pleads-for-help2020-09-08
https://neweralive.na/artists-impression-to-aid-ujaha-murder-investigation/
https://informante.web.na/?p=286198
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/cheryls-murder-unique-ndeitunga2018-09-07
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/body-found-that-of-cheryl-92018-08-28/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/witchcraft-remains-centre-stage2018-08-29/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/i-forgive-her-killer2018-08-29/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/cops-post-reward-to-track-cheryls-killer2018-08-30/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/be-wary-of-cults2018-08-30/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/murder-investigation-stalls2018-09-03/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/reward-for-cheryls-killer-upped-to-n100k2018-09-06/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/cheryls-murder-unique-ndeitunga2018-09-07/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/hundreds-march-for-cheryl2018-09-07/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/cheryl-deserves-justice-geingos2018-09-10/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/pdm-outraged-over-unsolved-murders2018-09-13/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/no-peace-for-cheryls-family2018-10-19/
https://www.namibiansun.com/news/cops-hit-wall-in-hunt-for-cheryls-killer2019-01-30/
https://neweralive.na/en/posts/fellow-learners-bid-farewell-to-cheryl (the page is 404 but I've still been able to read some information from the article in the Google search results page)
Missing nine year old girl found dead in riverbed-NBC