A boda boda rider who initially posed as a state witness after the rape and brutal murder of a 13-year-old girl has been jailed after prosecutors narrowed the case down to him as the prime suspect in the heinous incident.
Thomas Nyongesa, 41, who claimed to be the first person on the scene, complicated matters during the trial when he told the court that he did not know the victim's family.
However, it was later established that they were neighbours and that his elder brother, who was also a witness in the case, had sold land to the victim's family.
The court was astonished when Nyongesa claimed that the deceased and her family were total strangers, yet he had taken the deceased to school on several occasions.
“I am surprised to hear the accused telling the court that he did not know my family yet we have been neighbours for years. Ironically, he is among the riders who have been transporting my daughter to school,” said Veronica Wabamba, the girl's mother.
Justice Reuben Nyakundi found Nyongesa guilty of raping and killing the Grade Six pupil on October 15, 2021 and dumping her body on the roadside in Lumakanda area of Kakamega County.
Nyongesa, a close neighbour of the deceased's family, allegedly lured the schoolgirl with a ride on his motorcycle as she was returning home in the evening and took her to his house where he defiled her.
The court heard that the girl's private parts were severely damaged, an indication that she may have been tortured before her mutilated body was dumped by a roadside near her home.
"This was a gender-based crime against a young girl whose safety and security should have been guaranteed by the convict if he had exercised restraint," Judge Nyakundi ruled.
Wabamba sobbed in court as she recounted her last moments with her daughter on October 14, 2021, as she prepared breakfast before dropping her off at school, hoping they would catch up as usual in the evening after school.
She broke down several times on the stand as she struggled to recount the events of the fateful day three years ago when her daughter was reported missing, sparking a frantic search.
“My daughter left for school on the morning of October 14 but did not return home in the evening, something that caused a lot of fear, scare and tension in my family because she had never failed to return home,” said Wabamba.
She said she told her husband about the matter and he assumed that their daughter had passed by her grandmother's house and decided to spend the night there.
The court heard that the next morning, a boda boda rider, who is the main suspect in the murder, arrived at their house and asked Wabamba to accompany him to see if they could identify a child who had been abandoned by the roadside.
She went with the rider to the scene and discovered her daughter's mutilated body, she said in tears.
Wabamba also told the court that exercise books with Kiswahili writings were found next to the lifeless body.
In his plea, the convict absolved himself of blame for what happened to the girl, saying he neither knew her nor her mother.
“I am being fixed after expressing my sympathy to the family. I was the first person on the scene and the previous day I heard that the family of the victim was looking for her,” Nyongesa told the court, claiming to be a victim of circumstances.
