Police have arrested a 29-year-old man who is reported to have butchered a man who was hosting him in his house before torching his body in a bush at Zombe area in Kitui County.

Nicholas Luka is the suspect who has been apprehended by police officers over the murder of the 36-year-old man in Kitui.

The brother of the deceased got suspicious after he disappeared from his house on January 13, 2021 for a whole week prompting him to launch a frantic search for him on Thursday.

A search with the help of neighbours saw the recovery of a recently burned human skull, a few bones and some ashes in a thicket, which police have collected and will take for DNA analysis.

Detectives have since established that on January 13, Luka the suspect and the deceased, Simon Mwangangi, had a bitter argument over a Sh4,000 debt that ended in a deadly fight.

The suspect is then said to have grabbed a machete which he used to slit the throat of the deceased then watched him bleed to death.

To cover up his crime, the suspect is then said to have dragged his body to nearby bushes and covered it with a heap of plastics before setting it on fire.

The remains are in police custody pending a forensic DNA analysis.