Kenyan jailed for life in US for raping disabled patient, 74

A Kenyan man, Anthony Mamboleo Nyakeo (pictured), has been sentenced to life imprisonment for raping a 74-year-old patient in Texas.

The 53-year-old was employed at the Woodridge Health and Rehabilitation Centre, a nursing facility for elderly and disabled people where the victim was admitted. It is at the centre that Nyakeo is said to have assaulted the woman.

The sexual assault was discovered after other nurses working at the facility found blood in the underwear of the victim. They then alerted the family before reporting the matter to the police.

According to the US media, the victim’s nephew, Michael Templin, said he got a call from the administrator of the Grapevine nursing home saying blood had been found in her undergarment and they needed his permission to have her examined to see if “anyone was doing something they should not have been doing.”

“She was petrified and in fear,” Templin said, explaining that they always knew the victim who could not talk was frightened by watching her reaction.

“When she was frightened, her chin would tremble, Templin explained, waving his hands up and down in a fan-like motion. And that night, her chin was trembling violently,” Templin said.

All male staff were made to go for DNA test, and it is then that Nyakeo was linked with the crime. The Tarrant County District Attorney’s said Nyakeo’s DNA sample “matched the sample recovered from the woman during her sexual assault exam.

In his defence, Nyakeo had said that someone planted his DNA from a used condom in the body of the victim.

He claimed he was having an affair with his charge nurse, and that they had engaged in sexual relations and he discarded the condoms that they used in waste bins at the nursing facility, and that someone might have used the sample to frame him.

The crime occurred in January 2018, and the victim who suffered from dementia died later that year.

Abuse victims

The case sparked conversation in American news platforms and social media, where the users were raising concern over the rising number of cases where caregivers have been found to abuse victims under their care.

“She could not speak, feed herself or use the bathroom on her own as she wore a diaper and relied on staff. We are an ageing community and we each deserve the peace of mind of knowing we will be treated with dignity when such time comes,” Jordan Rolfe, the lead prosecutor told the court, a comment that was shared by several people online.

Several people came forward to share horror tales of how their sick or aging relatives have suffered under the people who were supposed to care for them.

Early this year, a woman in Arizona who was in a vegetative state for several years was found to be pregnant in an apparent rape case that once again sparked the fury of relatives who demanded for proper vetting of people who care for vulnerable victims.