Yes, I tried to kill the boy, house help admits

A house help accused of kidnapping and attempting to kill her employer’s 9-year-old son was arraigned at the Makadara Law Courts Wednesday, where she pleaded guilty to the criminal charges.

Jacinta Kanini Muia, who was arraigned before Chief Magistrate Heston Nyagah, pleaded guilty to attempting to kill her employer’s son by poisoning him in Embakasi. She also pleaded guilty to attempted murder.

According to the prosecution, the 25-year-old lady is alleged to have committed the offence on June 8, 2017 at Kariobangi South Civil Servant Estate.

Muia also pleaded guilty to three more counts in the same court.

She admitted to abducting the boy on the same dates in order to murder him. The prosecution told the court that Muia was employed by the minor’s parents and had been living together for a while.

According to a report that had been filed at the Buruburu police station, Muia took her employer’s son from school on June 8 and boarded a taxi with him to her 27-year-old boyfriend’s place in California Estate, Eastleigh.

Muia’s boyfriend, Lucas Sirengo, was not home at the time.

Muia called him on phone and requested for the key to Sirengo’s house, saying she had a luggage that she wanted to leave in his house.

Muia’s boyfriend told her to go pick the house key where he was, not far away, which she did.

On returning, she locked the 9-year-old boy inside Sirengo’s house.

Muia would, later the same evening, buy a new SIM card and register it under the name of Batula Shariff Yussuf using an identity card that she had obtained illegally.

Muia then sent a text message to the boy’s mother, demanding a ransom of Ksh100, 000.

Muia had warned her employer that if she reported the boy’s abduction to the police, she (Muia) was going to kill the 9-year-old boy.

Her employer sent Ksh10, 010 and pleaded for more time to raise the remaining Ksh89, 990.

From the mobile money transfer message, Muia’s employer recalled having seen her house help with an identity card of one Batula Shariff Yussuf, which gave her a clue on who the suspect was.

Muia’s employer then reported the matter to the police, who launched a manhunt for the suspect.

Muia was traced to a house in Huruma, Nairobi.

On receiving the money, Muia withdrew Ksh9, 000 and went to Eastleigh, where she took the boy from the hideout and led him to a shop where he bought a bottle of soda and an insecticide called Confidor.

Muia allegedly mixed one sachet of Confidor with the soda and forced the boy to drink the mixture “so that he could die”.

According to a website shedding light on the harmful effects of Confidor, the pesticide is highly poisonous if swallowed by humans and the website warns if that happens, “call a poison control centre or doctor immediately for treatment advice”.

Muia, would at 9pm on Thursday, June 8, take her victim to a matatu stage, where she told a tout operating a matatu plying the Eastleigh route to drop him at the KDF Moi Airbase gate.

On reaching the KDF Moi Airbase stage, and being the only passenger left in the matatu, the tout was hesitant to leave the boy alone as he looked ill.

The tout asked the boy for his parents’ phone numbers, which he gave out.

The tout phoned the boy’s father to inform him of the whereabouts of their child, who at the time had been handed over to the police.

After narrating his ordeal to the police, the boy was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was treated and discharged.

Police officers then embarked on a manhunt for the suspect using GPS technology.

Muia was arrested at the house of Pastor Christopher Muindi Mutunga of Evangelism Fellowship Centre in Huruma.

Police recovered two mobile phones, one of which had been used to demand the ransom; two sachets of Confidor pesticide, two identity cards belonging to her and Batula Shariff Yussuf and Ksh5, 000.

Muia will be sentenced on June 28, 2017.