Police in Kiambu have arrested a woman who is said to have beaten her 8-year-old daughter to death on Monday.
The incident occurred in Kiambu’s Turitu village, where the woman known as Fena, a mother of three, beat her daughter, a grade one student with an electric wire.
According to Aggrey Kidake, a security guard, when he got home from work at around 8 am on Monday, he found the little girl sleeping alongside his children because she had run away from home because her mother always beats her.
Kidake stated that he took the girl back to her house and left, and that around 12 p.m., Neighbours called him, asking him to hurry because her child had fallen and that she needed to be taken to the hospital.
“The girl whenever she is beaten she runs to my home and when I found her at my house, I returned her to her mother, but later in the day, I was told by the girl’s mother that her daughter was dying and should hurry up and take her to hospital as she had fallen down,” Kidake said.
He claimed that when he arrived at the house, the girl had soiled herself and her clothes were stained with blood, and she was asking for water.
“I rushed the girl to Kiambu level five hospital with a motorbike, and the girl was pronounced dead upon arrival,” he said.
When the doctors asked what happened, the woman insisted that the girl had fallen, but when her body was moved to the mortuary, multiple bruises were discovered on her body, indicating that she did not succumb due to falling alone.
“After the mortuary attendants examined the body of the girl, they saw that the girl had multiple bruises on her body, and they insisted that it was a police case and the woman should report to the police,” he said.
According to the guard, the woman panicked when she realised the situation had escalated into a police investigation, and that she asked him whether she should tell the truth.
“All along the woman was calm but when she heard that now it has become a police matter she panicked asking me whether she should tell the truth,” he added.
Elizabeth Nyambura a college student and immediate neighbour, said that she was woken up by the commotion of the woman beating up her child, which had been a usual case.
“The woman beats her daughter almost every day where the girl runs away to go to sleep at a neighbor’s house, and today I was woken up by the woman beating her up again as she was brought back by the neighbor,” she said.
She said by the time she finished preparing herself to go to school, the woman was locked in her house with sounds of the girl being beaten.
“As neighbours, we could do nothing since the girl is usually beaten up by the mother, who, when asked, hurls insulting words at us and is aggressive, telling us to mind our business and discipline her children however she wants,” she said.
The woman is said to have broken her son’s legs when he was young, and her son, who is now in fourth grade, was taken to a children’s home where he currently lives.
Lucy Njoki, the deceased’s grandmother, stated that the woman broke up with her son, the girl’s father, because she was beating him and they could not stay together any longer.
“I got a phone call from a neighbour saying that Fena has beaten her daughter very badly and has been taken to the hospital, where she has been pronounced dead,” Njoki said.
Njoki stated that she was unaware of her granddaughter’s situation because the woman had long since left to avoid them.
The woman is said to have been reported to the police severally with the school administration also summoning her severally over the girls injuries
The woman was arrested while carrying her one-year-old daughter and is being held at Kiambu police station. She cooks food for construction workers and is described as energetic and hardworking.
