Suspect linked to the murder of 12-year-old grade six pupil to undergo age and mental assessment
The Nakuru Law Courts
A suspect linked to the defilement and murder of a 12-year-old girl in Lare, Njoro, Nakuru County, has been detained for six days pending age and mental assessments.
The suspect, who is believed to be a minor, will remain in custody until an age assessment is conducted to ascertain his age.
The court also directed that a mental assessment be carried out before the suspect appears again in court on May 28.
“In the meantime, the suspect will be detained at Njoro Police Station awaiting the mental and age assessment,” ruled the Resident Magistrate.
The court postponed hearing a miscellaneous application in which the police are seeking to detain Job for 21 days to allow investigations into the murder.
The State counsel submitted that the application could only proceed once the suspect’s age is confirmed.
“If he is a minor, then a lawyer needs to be appointed to represent him during the miscellaneous application. We urge the court to defer the same,” the counsel noted.
Police said they need 21 days to finish investigating the murder case at Mau Narok Police Station under OB Number 17/19/5/2026.
They noted that the suspect was arrested on May 21 and only one witness statement has been recorded so far, adding that investigators needed more time to trace additional witnesses.
“Preliminary investigations link the suspect to the murder of Mercy Nyambura, 12, who was a Grade Six pupil at Sinendet Primary School in Naishi, Njoro,” the police said.
The officer further said the girl was found defiled and dead inside a maize plantation, with foam coming from her mouth and nose, and visible strangulation marks on her neck.
The police also informed the court that investigators still need to conduct DNA sampling procedures and a mental assessment before the suspect is formally charged.
“Since his arrest, we haven’t had enough time to conduct an in-depth investigation into the complex matter of public interest,” the police added.
The detention comes a day after a postmortem examination revealed that Nyambura had been manually strangled, with doctors also revealing evidence of sexual assault and multiple injuries sustained before her death.