Piece by: Alice Waithera

21 December 2023

• James Gitau, the suspect, is a secondary school teacher who is alleged to have split from his wife six months ago over domestic problems.

Authorities are looking for a man in Kiawambeu village, Murang'a County, who they believe killed his two boys due to marital arguments before escaping.

James Gitau, the suspect, is a secondary school teacher who is alleged to have split from his wife six months ago over domestic problems.

However, he is said to have picked up his two sons, who are two and five years old, on Tuesday, saying he wanted to spend the night with them.

The two-year-old lived with his aunt, and the five-year-old was an ECDE learner.

Residents claimed that Gitau spoke with his divorced wife for more than ten minutes on his mother's cell phone before committing the horrible crime at 11 p.m.

They were sleeping when he allegedly went to his mother's house, woke them, and brought them to his one-room home.

Joseph Njuguna, a neighbour, reported that Gitau's mother asked him to open the door as she was panting and knocking on their door, fearing for her safety.

After telling her neighbour about her son's butchering of her grandsons, the grandmother went to the assistant chief's house in the community to report the incident.

“We came back with the assistant chief, the chief and some police officers and opened the door to Gitau’s room to find the boy’s bodies on the bed, beheaded”.

According to Njuguna, they believed the suspect might have killed himself and looked for him in the surrounding farms and rivers after learning he had run away.

“He must be hiding somewhere nearby and could be waiting for nightfall to traverse the village. Our plea is to the police to ensure they arrest him since we don’t know what else he could be planning to do."

Gitau's mother objected to his decision to remove the boys from her home, but he overcame her, according to Assistant Chief Jason Hiuhu.

“She could not find her mobile phone at some point and after looking for it, went to his room and found him nervously clutching onto something”.

“She left him alone and went back to her house, and returned to his room minutes later to find it partially locked from the outside and when she opened the door, she was shocked to see the lifeless bodies of the two boys."

David Mathiu, the county commander of Murang'a, affirmed that a dragnet had been set up for the suspect.

“It seems he was on a vengeance mission and ended up harming innocent children,” he said.

When facing marital conflicts, he advised the inhabitants to consult the administrators and clerics.

Mathiu requested the community to report any instances of domestic abuse to the police, pointing out that the number of homicides that occur in households has been increasing.