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MURDER MOST FOUL: Toddler found dead with eyes gouged out


A three-year-old girl who went missing 11 days ago at Nginyi village in Gatanga, Murang’a, has been found brutally murdered.

The body of Baby Mercy Njoki was discovered in a community dam with eyes gouged, finger nails plucked out and her head partly shaved.

Locals said the minor was defiled before being dumped in the dam and are now associating the bizarre incident with witchcraft and sorcery.

Her mother, Catherine Njeri, said her child was playing with her colleagues when she went missing.

The woman started a frantic search for her daughter after she failed to return home.

“After days of search, I was called by a friend who told me that there was a body floating in the dam several kilometers away from home,” she said as she sobbed.

WITCHCRAFT

“When we rushed there, we identified the body as that of my daughter.”

The state of Njoki’s body, she said, was worrying her more.

“It’s painful to watch my lovely innocent daughter lifeless and her parts of the body missing,” she said.

“I’m now living in fear because I don’t know where the parts of the body were taken to and the motive behind the killing.”

John Kamau, a resident of the area, attributed the rare occurrence to witchcraft, saying the perpetrator could have extracted the parts for evil plans.

The residents called on police to speed up investigations and arrest the Njoki’s killers.

Mr Kamau said the death of Njoki had left the whole village in shock because residents have never witnessed such a bizarre occurrence.

DEFILEMENT

“We are even afraid of leaving our children alone as the killer could be roaming around,” he said.

The villagers also called on the county government to sink boreholes in the area as the dam in which the body was dumped is their main source of water for drinking and domestic use.

Kakuzi Mitumbiri Ward MCA Pelagia Muthoni decried a spike in defilement and murder cases in the county and called for a stakeholders consultative forum to discuss the matter.

“It’s too much now. Every day in Murang’a, we are hearing about these cases and it’s high time women organisations and government agencies sit down and chat the way forward,” she said.

Drug abuse, especially among the youth, could be the main driver of defilement, sodomy and murder in the county, the MCA speculated.

Gatanga police chief Beatrice Kiraguri said the matter is being investigated.