A Delaware woman who was reported missing last week was found dismembered in a car over the weekend, police said in a Monday statement. A Maryland man has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
Tracy Nyariki of Newark, Delaware, was reported missing by her employer on Friday night who had grown worried after she hadn’t been to work for several days.
Officers from the New Castle County Police Department responded to inspect Nyariki’s apartment in the 2700 block of Stone Place in the Village of Kent, but they found no signs of the missing 31-year-old.
During their investigation, police noticed several suspicious circumstances that raised concerns about Nyariki’s safety and well-being. Attempts to contact the woman by phone remained unsuccessful.
A Gold Alert was issued to engage the public in the search for the missing woman, and the case was relayed to the Criminal Investigations Unit.
The investigation led detectives to identify 32-year-old Nobert Matara as “a potential person of interest,” the New Castle County Police Department said in a statement on social media.
On Saturday, Dec. 21, at approximately 5:00 p.m., detectives sought assistance from the Aberdeen Police Department in Maryland to locate Tracy Nyariki, Nobert Matara, and Matara’s vehicle.
Detectives from the New Castle County Special Investigations Squad, assisted by Aberdeen police, found Nobert Matara in the 1100 block of South Philadelphia Boulevard in Aberdeen.
“Subsequent investigation led to the discovery of human remains in a vehicle,” the Aberdeen Police Department said in a separate press release.
The discovery led to Matara’s immediate arrest.
He is in jail in Maryland awaiting extradition to Delaware on first-degree murder charges.
Whether the body is indeed Nyariki’s has yet to be officially confirmed, but police said additional charges may be filed “as evidence continues to be collected in this ongoing investigation.”
Currently, the New Castle County Police Department has four people on their missing persons list, all of them women who’ve been missing for 10 years or more.
The police department’s website also features a list of 17 “cold cases,” dating back to the 1970s.
Strides in forensic DNA analysis have been allowing detectives to unravel decades-old cases.
Last month, DNA analysis allowed investigators to identify the killer in a murder-rape case in Riverside County, California, from more than 45 years ago.
The killer was cleared of any wrongdoing after passing a lie-detector test at the time. Though he has been positively identified, he managed to escape justice for a second time as he passed away in Florida, ten years ago.