26-year-old Michael Muthini Mutunga has admitted that he killed Machakos priest the late Father Michael Maingi Kyengo because he was gay and forced him into sexual act.
Father Kyengo disappeared from his parents’ Tala home on October 5th 2019 and his body recovered on October 16th from a riverbed in Mbeere South, Embu. The priest’s disappearance was reported to the KBC police station on October 7th.
Mutunga was arrested on October 15th for being in possession of Father Kyengo’s car which had been circulated as a wanted in respect of the missing father.
The suspect admitted knowing the whereabouts of the slain priest whose body was found buried in a riverbed in Embu.
Mutunga provided police with information that led to the arrest of two other accomplices, detectives believed they killed 40-year-old Father Kyengo in a robbery attack.
However, Mutunga later told police that Father Kyengo was in a gay relationship with him and that he killed him because he sodomized him at least on two occasions.
A forensic examination of Mutunga’s phone reinforced his claims after the police discovered romantic text messages alleged to have been shared by the two.
In one of the conversations dated October 6th, Mutunga and Father Kyengo referred to each other in romantic terms of “Hi dear” and “Hi my love”.
Special Crimes Prevention Unit officers travelled to Gaitegi village in Embu where they recovered a knife from a pit latrine in the suspect’s home. This is the knife police believe was used by the killers to slit Father Kyengo’s neck and stab him twice in the stomach.
Mutunga was on Thursday October 21st 2021 presented before Justice Lucy Njuguna of Embu court for his sentencing.
The suspect, who is charged alongside Kavivya Mwangangi and Solomon Mutava Wambua, told the court that he killed Father Kyengo because he forced him into sexual act.
In his mitigation submissions to the court, the 26-year-old through his advocate Guantai Kirimi said he acted out of anger and grief in committing the offense.
Mutunga told the court that Father Kyengo started grooming him to be gay in 2017 when he started paying his school fees and begun calling him “dear” and “sweetheart”.
The accused also submitted that Father Kyengo sodomized him twice, infected him with a sexually transmitted disease and wanted to kill him when he threatened to open up to the church, which would have portrayed a bad picture and affected his work as a priest.
“We pray for mercy from this court, and also ask the court to exercise discretion, sentence the 1st accused to a non-punitive sentence. Indeed he has wronged, has accepted that he wronged, took the law into his own hands and I urge the court to give the accused a chance to reform his life which has been altered and not ruined yet,” defense lawyer argued.
Justice Lucy Njuguna convicted the accused and ordered a victim impact report before sentencing.
“The accused is convicted on his own plea of guilty,” said Justice Njuguna.
