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Mother of two found guilty of strangling her 5-day-old baby to death

20th February, 2019

A woman has been found guilty of killing her five-day-old baby.

The woman, referred to as MN, first blamed her husband, MM, for the death of the infant, claiming that he did not want another child.

 

The couple had two other children, one aged 9 and the other 6.

High Court Judge Teresiah Matheka ruled that there were gaps in the woman's testimony.

“In my view, the accused person’s evidence that it was her husband who killed the child is the evidence of an accomplice and must be treated with the care it deserves," stated Justice Matheka.

The woman bore the child on April 22, 2016 at Kianyaga, in Kirinyaga County. She went to her mother’s house and stayed for five days.

On April 27, her husband went for her and they set off for their home in Karatina. Three days later, on April 30, the woman returned to her mother’s house without the baby.

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When she was pressed to explain where the baby was, she told the area assistant chief that it had died along the way and was buried.

The suspect was taken to the police station on May 1, where she repeated her story.

Still bleeding

Nine days later, she told police that when her husband picked her up from her mother’s house, she alighted from a matatu near Karatina to change her sanitary pads in a bush between 7 and 8pm because she was still bleeding.

She claimed that she found that her husband had killed the baby, put her in a plastic bag and dumped the body.

The baby's body was found in the bush.

The suspect told police that her husband was upset with her for giving birth to another child and that they fought several times about it.

The court heard that the man had left her in 2015 when she informed him that she was pregnant with their second child.

“Upon discharge he was very harsh with me and told me to find a place to take the baby. That is how I ended up at my mother’s home on January 31, 2016, when I was six months pregnant and remained there till I gave birth to the third baby on April 22, 2016,” she claimed.

She testified that her husband found out that she had a baby girl and directed that the child be named after his mother.

On cross-examination the woman conceded that she did not report to anyone that her husband had killed the baby because she was afraid he would harm her.

Postnatal depression

A psychiatric report ruled out concerns that the woman could have been suffering from postnatal depression.

“The inconsistencies in her testimony have not shaken the case for the prosecution or created any doubt in the mind of the court. What is the accused person trying to hide if indeed it is the husband who killed the child and disappeared?” said the judge.

The woman will be sentenced at a later date.

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