Two men accused of killing a boda boda rider in November 2018 in Siaya by running him over multiple times were sentenced to life imprisonment.
The boda boda rider, identified as Ronald Otieno, met his death when he went after the accused persons who had taken off with his girlfriend in a pick-up.
The accused, Benjamin Odhiambo and Vincent Owuor, had however pleaded not guilty to the murder of the boda boda rider but Hon Justice R. E. Aburili of the Siaya High Court, stated that the court was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the two indeed murdered the deceased.
“The suspects who had pleaded not guilty found themselves in a tight corner after being confronted with irrefutable forensic evidence, painstakingly gathered by our detectives,” DCI said in a report
The statement further said that the murder scene had been stage managed to look like an accident but the police dismissed the conclusion after a forensic investigations was conducted.
According to DCI, the incident occurred on the night of November 30, 2018. The deceased and his girlfriend Mercy Akinyi had gone out to have some fun at a popular nightspot in Bungasi trading center in Siaya County.
“The deceased and his girlfriend Mercy Akinyi had arrived on a boda boda and went for a dance at the nightspot, which had hosted a disco. Lovers and common revelers had thronged the club as they danced to local benga and Ohangla tunes, popular in the Luo traditional folklore,” the statement read.
At around midnight things took a turn and the couple quarreled after which Akinyi took her leave and boarded a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck that had been parked outside which then left immediately.
The boda boda rider went after the vehicle alongside his brother on his motorbike. They caught up with it and overtook it.
“Determined to get his girl back from the two men, the deceased together with his brother flagged down the vehicle but the driver had no intention to stop. He accelerated and hit the motorbike from the back, tossing the pillion passenger to a nearby ditch and the deceased on the road,” DCI stated.
One of the accused alighted from the vehicle and confirmed that the deceased’s brother was dead but the rider was still alive.
“The accused positioned the deceased along the tracks of the truck and instructed his accomplice to reverse, running over the deceased several times into a pulp. The two then escaped to an unknown destination, after the 3am incident,” DCI further said.
The brother however pretended to be dead to escape the wrath of the vicious men and listened to his brother being run over before the vehicle left.
After the police arrived at the scene, one of them noted that the accident did not appear normal. Police officers were raised across the country and the vehicle that was involved in the grisly murder circulated on the police radar. It was later flagged down as it approached Nairobi and the two suspects arrested.
The vehicle that had been thoroughly cleaned to erase any traces of the accident was impounded and later became the key exhibit into unraveling the murder mystery.
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