A 15-year-old boy was arrested in Murang’a County as the main suspect for the killing of a nine-year-old girl.

Police believe the boy killed Purity Njeri Chege in Ihiga-ini village, Murang’a County.

The minor’s remains were discovered buried in a shallow grave three days after she went missing.

The suspect was the last person to be seen with the 9-year-old girl on Saturday at 9 am according to neighbours.

The body of Njeri, who was in Grade Three, had deep injuries on the head, suspected to have been inflicted by a fork jembe.

Homicide detectives at the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) have the work of piecing up the sequence of events leading up to the death of the girl.

The detectives have to uncover the motive but they believe it was premeditated.

They will also need to find out if an adult was involved in the killing and disposal of the girl’s body.

According to Murang’a DCI boss Judy Muthini the incident was reported on Sunday by Mr John Chege Marubu, the girl’s father.

The family reported that the victim and the suspect had been last spotted in the latter’s family farm at around 9 am picking avocados.

“Her body was found 30 metres from the avocado tree in the neighbour’s farm and booked at the police patrol base,” he said.

“The matter is under police investigations, while the body was moved to Murang’a district mortuary for a postmortem examination,” Kinyua added.

The matter is being investigated by Murang’a South DCI office as the teenager is held at Maragua Police Station.

A post-mortem conducted on Monday revealed that the girl died of manual strangulation as she had bruises on the neck.

“The post-mortem examination indicates that the girl died of lack of oxygen in the brain, most probable cause being manual strangulation,” said Murang’a DCI boss Judy Muthini.

Source: Opera News