Police in Murang’a county, Keny have arrested a 25-year-old man who allegedly hacked to death a five-year-old son of his girlfriend after she turned down his proposal to have his name entered in the boy’s birth certificate as his father.
Paul Njuguna Njoroge was arrested on Wednesday, April 10, evening at Mukarara trading centre near his home within Gatanga Sub-county by detectives in an operation led by the officer in charge of Muranga East Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), Juliana Muthini.
The suspect was arraigned in a Muranga court on Thursday, April 11, to face murder charges.
Njuguna, it was gathered, was alleged to have killed Collins Waweru while asleep at his grandparents’ home at Ndutumi village in Kiharu on Saturday, April 6, at around 10pm.
Confirming the murder incident, Murang’a county police commander Josephat Kinyua disclosed the suspect first confronted an aunt to the deceased who was taking care of the boy at the time together with her own two-year-old son.
“During the struggle, she was cut on her left hand but managed to escape while raising an alarm calling for help from neighbours,” Kinyua said.
The suspect allegedly arrived at the boy’s grandmother’s place at around 8pm armed with a machete and lay in wait behind the house but struck just before the family could sleep.
According to the police, the suspect was able to access the house after overpowering the minor’s grandfather who is said to be blind.
The suspect then went into the bedroom where the late Collins slept and allegedly slashed him on the head and neck, killing him instantly.
The police boss said by the time the residents responded to the alarm, they found the boy dead and lying in a pool of blood on the bed that he shared with his two-year-old cousin and with the suspect nowhere in sight.
An officer involved in the investigation revealed that the suspect claimed he killed the boy after the mother declined to have his name entered in the birth certificate as his father.
“The suspect has confessed executing the murder saying he was angered by the mother’s decision to have Evans Macharia who is the biological father to the deceased and whose name is indicated in the birth acknowledgment slip to have his name entered in the birth certificate as the father despite having separated a few years ago.
He felt that he had invested in the boy as he had assumed the role of a father although they have not been living together with his mother as a husband and wife,” the offier said.
The mother to the deceased works in Thika where she was at the time of the incident while the suspect is a casual labourer at a coffee farm in Gatanga.