The arrest and detention of a 15-year-old suspect in connection with the gruesome murder of a nine-year-old girl is raising questions on the moral fabric of the Kenyan society.

Police believe the boy, currently in custody at Maragua Police Station in Murang’a County, killed Purity Njeri Chege in Ihiga-ini village.

Villagers are yet to come to terms with the possibility that the Standard Six pupil strangled to death a third grader, stashed her body in a gunny bag and hurriedly buried it in a shallow grave.

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

Homicide detectives at the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) are working to piece up the sequence of events leading up to the death of the girl and the circumstances surrounding the boy’s arrest.

Detectives are also yet to uncover the motive, which they believe was premeditated, and whether an adult could have been involved in the killing and disposal of the girl’s body, all in a span of about an hour.

Murang’a DCI boss Judy Muthini said the incident was reported on Sunday by Mr John Chege Marubu, the girl’s father.

The family reported that the victim and the suspect had been last spotted in the latter’s family farm at around 9am picking avocados.

BODY BURIED

An hour later, the suspect delivered avocados to the victim’s home and reported that he could not find her and that he did not know where she had gone.

Mr Chege went searching in the farm only to stumble on a freshly dug pit and on removing soil, found his daughter’s body wrapped in a gunny bag.

“The body was found at around 10 am half-buried in a pit measuring two by three feet in the boy’s family land,” Mrs Muthini said.

Forensic investigators from DCI headquarters in Nairobi have been dispatched to the area.

Neighbours identified the 15-year-old boy as the last person to have been seen with the victim.

 “He was arrested and locked up in Maragua Police Station awaiting further investigations and interrogation,” Ms Muthini said.

MANUAL STRANGULATION

A post-mortem on the body on Monday revealed that the girl died of manual strangulation as she had bruises on the neck.

“The post-mortem examination indicates that the girl died of lack of oxygen in the brain, most probable cause being manual strangulation,” Ms Muthini said.

The post-mortem exam ruled out the possibility of rape, with detectives saying the girl did not have any sexual assault injuries.

 The deceased’s mother Mary Wairimu told the Nation that her daughter was in a good mood on the fateful morning, adding that she would not pass judgement on the suspect.

“I am content to wait for the process to take its own cause, but praying for both my family and that of the arrested boy that we all be strengthened to cope with the turn of events,” she said.

The Constitution, in Article 53(1)(f), provides that a child should not be detained except as a measure of last resort and, when detained, be held for the shortest appropriate period separate from adults and in conditions that take account of the minor’s gender and age.

BEST INTERESTS

Article 53(2) stipulates that a child’s best interests are of paramount importance in every matter concerning him or her.

For a crime to be validly proven as a murder, the killing must be proved beyond reasonable doubt to have been premeditated. Notably, in juvenile justice, capacity is not an element of criminal liability but forms part of the culpability. However, age is fundamental.

The Penal Code places criminal liability from age eight. However, this is often criticised because in most international laws it is 12.