Trial of serial killer Onyancha hits a snag

The trial of self-confessed serial killer Phillip Onyancha hit a snag on Tuesday after it emerged that a prosecution witness testifying against him received ransom money from the parents of a child the suspect allegedly murdered in Lenana Forest in Nairobi.

Prosecutor Moses O’mirera asked the court to halt the questioning of the witness after he failed to give an account of a report he made at the Kilimani police station over the loss of his identity card, mobile phone and cash following an alleged carjacking incident several days before the child was reported missing.

Mr Henry Mungai Kang’ara had told the court that he lost his personal effects in a carjacking incident, but he could not account for the reports he initially made at Riruta police station and later at Kilimani police station regarding the incident.

“It is important that we get the incident reports, as ransom in this case was paid to his account… there is a gap in his evidence, I wish to show the connection between the case facing the suspect and the withdrawal of the money,” Mr O’mirera told justice Nicholas Ombija.

FRANTIC SEARCH

The prosecutor requested summons against the OCS of Kilimani police station “to avail the relevant Occurrence Book that was used to issue Mr Mungai with an abstract to facilitate the replacement of the ID card he said he had lost in the carjacking.”

Earlier, the witness had recounted how four gangsters had entered a matatu he was in at Uthiru and commandeered it to a forest in the Dagoretti area.

He said he initially made the report at Riruta police station but was later issued with an abstract at Kilimani police station.

Meanwhile, the mother of the murdered child, Ms Beth Nduta, recounted the frantic search for her son that ended in a thicket inside the Lenana Forest, where she said she saw her son’s decomposing body.

Ms Nduta said she last saw her son on April 5, 2010, when her husband asked him to get sawdust for a chicken shed at around 5:00pm.

“I came back home at around 8:00pm and my first-born daughter told me Tony had not returned,” Ms Nduta said.

T-SHIRT RECOVERED

She said she got alarmed and sought to speak with her son’s playmate, who told her they had been playing football at an open field near Lenana forest when some people started chasing them and each had ran in a different direction.

“I went back to the house (and saw that) my husband had also left to search for the missing boy… The following day I called other mothers and we launched another desperate search inside Lenana forest, where we thought he had ran into, but we did not find him and came back home around 2:00pm,” the mother said.

She said her husband was later called to the chief’s camp, where a T-shirt she identified had been dropped off by unknown people.

"I knew something had gone wrong when I saw the T-shirt,” she said.

Ms Nduta also recounted how she was called to identify the body that had been found inside the forest and later at the mortuary where DNA samples were taken from her. Further hearing is on July 28.