January 31, 2025

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Boy, 14, held over the murder of friend after jumper found at scene

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A 14-year-old boy is in police custody after his hooded jumper was found inside an empty house where his friend who had gone missing two weeks ago was found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances that have shocked the residents of Kisaju, Kajiado County.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) was on Wednesday evening allowed by a court in Kajiado to continue holding the boy in order to complete investigations on the murder of Emmanuel Kibet Kipkemboi.

Three adults at Jamii Bora estate, located eight kilometres off the Nairobi-Namanga highway at Kisaju, positively identified the brown jumper that was taken by police from the scene where Kibet’s body was found, as belonging to his friend.

Kibet, 11, a Grade Five pupil at Sathya Sai School, who lived with his father until his death in January, went missing on Sunday, March 27, while playing football outside his mother’s house at Jamii Bora estate.

Frantic search

According to his family; Kibet who was an ardent football player, had never been involved in any trouble or pulled a disappearing act before. Yet that Sunday morning, he disappeared, prompting a frantic neighbourhood search for him.

Jamii Bora estate, which was originally planned as a low-cost housing project for Nairobi slum dwellers in the dusty plains of Isinya, has over the years been vacated as home owners moved back to city, leaving hundreds of empty structures that are falling apart.

When Kibet disappeared, neighbours started combing through all the empty houses, hoping to find a clue on his whereabouts, but there was no sign of him on the first day. His friends who were last seen with him claimed they did not know where he went.

Reported his disappearance

Fearing that something bad had happened to her son, Mercy Chepkorir Kipsang reported his disappearance at the Isinya Sub County Police headquarters, more than six kilometres away. She then went back home where the search for Kibet continued.

After three days of searching, a report was filed at the police station by a Mr Kevin Monai, a village elder at the estate, that Kibet’s body had been found in one of the empty houses.