The police are looking for unknown people who murdered a 15 years old KCPE candidate in Gatitu village, Kandara sub county, Murang’a County.
The boy, Juliano Kanyonyo Mbatha emerged third in his school after scoring 376 marks but was found dead in his room on Sunday.
Kanyonyo had undergone circumcision last Monday and was on his last day of bed rest when he passed away.
According to his uncle Joseph Kamande, his mother called for him and when he did not answer she got into his room with a few relatives and found him dead in his bed.
Kamande noted that Kanyonyo was producing a bloody foam from his mouth when they found him.
County Commander of Police Farah Mohamed noted that an autopsy conducted on the deceased on Tuesday revealed that he had died from brain hemorrhage.
“The postmortem results revealed that the boy had blunt force trauma in his head that is consistent with assault,” he said.
He said the police are now looking for the people behind the boy’s murder saying they will be arrested and charged with murder.
“We have just started our investigations and will work closely with the boy’s family to ensure the culprits are found,” he added.
Mohamed warned residents against harassing initiates in the name of tradition saying it could escalate into assault and cause loss of life as in Kanyonyo’s case.
Locals had expressed concerns that the boy had been tortured to death as a way of graduating him into adulthood.
“We have to know who was talking to him, at what time and why and I know it is only a matter of time before we get the killers,” Mohamed said.
Kanyonyo’s death has caused grief in the entire village that has eulogized him as a disciplined and hard-working boy who had a bright future.
Gatitu Primary school head teacher Robert Muchara said the boy had been a top performer and was always focused on his studies.
Kanyonyo had started a rabbit rearing project in his home that he tended to in his free time and was a partial orphan after his father passed away in 2012.
-ALICE WAITHERA