When Mr John Nduno and his wife Mary Chepleting left their home in Naivasha on November 28, 2019 to bury a relative, their daughter Valerian Njeri was cheerful and in good spirits.
They had breakfast together before saying goodbye to Njeri around 7am and leaving for the funeral.
They had instructed the then 15-year-old to take good care of the house until they returned and to complete her chores and holiday assignments.
Tragically, a few hours later they would be planning another funeral.
This time one much, much closer to home.
A few hours after her parents left, Njeri, a promising firstborn child and a Form Two student at Mary Leakey Girls’ School, was found dead less than 100 meters from their home, bearing 12 stab wounds.
Njeri, described as a humble and bright student, had attained 346 marks in her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and was set to join Form Three in 2020.
On the fateful day, court documents show that Njeri had gone to return a chemistry book borrowed from Fredrick Mwonjeria, a neighbour and trusted friend who was then a Form Three student at Nanyuki High School.
According to court documents, the boy, then17 and now 22, made unwelcome sexual advances toward Njeri, which she rejected.
This rejection reportedly enraged him, leading to a fatal confrontation.
“The teenager confronted the victim after she returned the book around midday. After she turned down his advances to get intimate, he turned wild and stabbed her several times,” read part of a witness account.
The court heard that after Mwonjeria made the sexual advances that were rejected, he held Njeri, and when she tried running away, he used the knife he was using to chop French beans to stab her.
When the knife broke, Njeri, who was still alive, thought she was safe, but she was not.
Mwonjeria rushed to the kitchen, grabbed another knife and continued his assault.
After ensuring she was dead, the court further heard, Mwonjeria meticulously cleaned the scene, hid the body under his bed, and later disposed of it outside the family compound under the cover of darkness.
"The suspect dragged the body and hid it inside his room before he later dumped it outside the family's compound under the cover of darkness,” the investigator who testified in court said of the case.
The following morning, Mwonjeria acted as though nothing had happened, even spreading his books on the table to appear studious.
When Njeri’s parents searched for her, Mwonjeria was among the people they asked if they had seen Njeri.
However, police later discovered blood stains on his shorts and noticed a cut on his foot.
A blood trail led to his bed, where further evidence of the crime was found.
During interrogation, Mwonjeria confessed to the murder.
On Monday, after a five-year wait, Justice Grace Nzioka ruled that the prosecution had proven beyond reasonable doubt that Mwonjeria, 22, is guilty of murder.
“The prosecution proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused committed the murder. The accused was last seen with the victim and could not explain how his room and body were covered in bloodstains,” said Justice Nzioka.
The court noted that despite being a minor at the time of the crime, Mwonjeria’s actions were premeditated and carried out with malice.
"According to the post-mortem report, the deceased was stabbed 12 times while she was alive and the actions of the accused indicated hatred, and from the evidence adduced in court and the actions of the accused, this is pure malice murder and the accused is guilty as charged," the judge added.
The court ruled that the accused could not explain how his room and his body were covered in blood stains hours after the lifeless body was found.
According to the judge, though the accused was a minor when the incident occurred, he had malice when he committed the offence by stabbing the Form Two girl 12 times.
Mwonjeria, now a student at Machakos University, is in remand awaiting sentencing scheduled for February 23.
