Monday, 29th June 2026, had given no hint of what its evening would bring. It followed a familiar rhythm for Bishop Dennis Gitonga Ithalii.
He met with his pastors in the morning, then accompanied church board members to the bank for routine transactions. The afternoon was spent at his office, counselling members on personal and spiritual matters.
People who saw him that day would later say there was nothing to notice. He was calm. Focused. Going about his business. At 6 pm, he stepped into a nearby supermarket for a few household supplies, then proceeded home.
At home, it was a small, domestic moment, the kind that happens in every household. Supper was on the table, his daughters were around, and Bishop Dennis Gitonga Ithalii had developed a nagging cough.
He reached for his wallet, pulled out a Ksh200 note, and told his family he was going for medication and would be back shortly.
He left his phone with his daughter who was playing a game on it. His wallet, with his ID and other documents, stayed on the console table in the living room. He took nothing that a man takes when he plans to be gone for long.
Bishop Dennis Gitonga Didn’t Come Back
By 10 pm, the worry in the house was impossible to ignore. Dinner had gone cold. His wife, Gladys Wairimu, reached instinctively for her phone to call him, then remembered it was still sitting where he had left it.
Alongside bishop’s Dennis Gitonga nephew, Dennis Kabui, the wife went out to look for him. They tried the chemists nearby, the open shops along the road. Nothing.
They went to the church, because he sometimes went there late at night to pray, and found it dark and empty. They called around. Nobody had seen him.
The following morning, Wairimu and Pastor Zablon Mwangi walked into Uthiru Police Station and reported him missing.
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A Search That Found Nothing
The investigation that followed was thorough, at least in its reach.
DCI officers based at King’eero examined his phone. They found no suspicious messages, no unusual calls made in the days before he vanished, no trace of plans to leave. Nothing pointed toward a man who had intended to disappear.
Church members fanned out across Nairobi, checking hospitals, clinics and morgues. His description matched no records. Police pulled CCTV footage from Uthiru town and the surrounding streets. The cameras offered nothing useful.
The search then widened beyond the capital. Prayer centres he was known to frequent, in Ngong, Machakos, Meru, Kabete and Kikuyu, were all visited. He had not appeared at any of them.
A month later, the investigation remains open. There are no credible leads. No body has been recovered. There have been no verified sightings.
Bishop Ithalii, 44, is the founder of Neno Beulah Church in Mountainview, a short distance from Kabete National Polytechnic. His church is the kind built slowly over years under the unglamorous administration that keeps a church alive. He had led it for over fifteen years.
Together with his wife, Wairimu, they have two daughters and are expecting their third child.
Those who know him describe a man of quiet authority, spiritually grounded, even-tempered, without the kind of enemies or entanglements that might explain a sudden disappearance.
His congregation says there were no financial troubles at the church. People close to him recall no anxiety, no conflict, nothing that felt, in hindsight, like a warning.
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Dennis Gitonga Just Walked Out
Bishop Dennis Gitonga simply walked out of the door of his Uthiru apartment on the June evening to buy cough medicine from a chemist a few minutes away and vanished. He has never been seen since.
The police file is still open. His family continues to appeal for any information, a sighting, a conversation someone might have had with him, anything at all from the night of 29 June or the weeks that followed.
For now, they wait. His phone sits where he left it. His documents are still on the table. And a pregnant wife and two young daughters wake up every morning in a house that still feels, somehow, like he might just walk back through the door.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Bishop Dennis Gitonga Ithalii is asked to contact
Dennis – 0792639883
Gladys – 0725833432
Or the nearest police station.
This article is authored by Abuta Ogeto, an external contributor.
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