Kenyan man jailed for life for raping step-daughter

A man accused of killing his wife and defiling his 11-year-old step-daughter was finally charged after four years.

The man was convicted by a Nyeri court for defiling his daughter in 2011 and imprisoned for life early last month.

Resident Magistrate Christine Wekesa found him guilty of defilement, but let him off the hook over the murder of his wife for lack of evidence.

Prosecutors said the convict turned against his family on the night of October 19, 2011, at his home in Mweiga, Kieni West District.

After the heinous crime, he fled to Othaya Township, 40kms away, where he was employed in a hotel as a cook until his arrest early last year.

The prosecution dropped the murder charge for lack of witnesses and failure to do a post-mortem to establish the cause of death.

KEY WITNESS

According to the prosecution, the accused turned himself in to Othaya Police Station on May 12, last year, where he confessed to the crimes.

His underage daughter, who was the only key witness, narrated to the court how he defiled her.

In a moving testimony, she told the court how she discovered her mother’s body.

The minor, who broke down several times, said on the fateful night his father grabbed and took her into her bedroom where he defiled her for two hours and then disappeared.

The now 15-year-old girl added that during the ordeal, she kept screaming and calling for her mother to come to her aid, to no avail.

After the man left, she went to look for her mother in her bedroom only to discover her lifeless body in bed with a bed sheet tied around her neck.

The minor said she reported the matter to neighbors, who called in the police while she and her siblings fled to her grandmother’s home a few kilometers away.

The accused, however, denied committing the offence saying he was on his way to report the death of his wife to the police when he was arrested.

He, nonetheless, at a previous hearing, told the court that he had killed his wife for infecting him with HIV virus, saying there was no way he could have defiled the child and not infect her with the deadly virus.

The prosecution dismissed this allegation, saying this could have been one of the few cases of discordant persons.