Nyeri man jailed for defiling his two daughters and trying to infect them with HIV

Nyeri, Kenya: Has humanity gone to the dogs or are human beings slowly turning primitive?

For residents of Skuta Village, Nyeri County, the answer to this seemingly vague question can only be in the affirmative, if details of how a man attempted to infect his two daughters with the HIV virus is anything to go by.

Even more shockingly, the 55-year-old man defiled his daughters aged nine and 14 right before his wife who was feebly turning and whining in bed, dying from the deadly disease.

While at it, the monstrous father told the girls he wanted them to contract the HIV virus so that they would die just like him and their mother.

Someone once said, “God does not sleep in Kayole,” and he could as well have been referring to the two girls because when they were tested for HIV, they were found to be negative.

That was in 2012, just before the girls’ grandmother rescued them from their monstrous father and handed him over to the police.

The Nyeri court handling the case did their job and sent the man to jail for half a century.

And although a year has passed since he was jailed, villagers are still in shock. The two girls are traumatised and are ashamed that they once called the monster their father.

During an earlier interview, the girls said they wished the court had sentenced their father to death, or at least a life sentence so that he rots in jail.

Apparently, it was not only the girls who the old man attempted to infect with the virus – as their aunt also narrated an incident where he attempted to rape her when she visited her ailing sister (his wife).

The two girls narrated their harrowing ordeal at the hands of their father before Nyeri Resident Magistrate John Aringo last year. In their testimonies, the two girls said their father threatened to kill them if they disclosed what he had done.

“I arrived home from school and found dad in the sitting room. Mum was sleeping in the bedroom. I did not know that my own father would do what he did to me. He stripped me and dragged me to the sofa and forced me to do tabia mbaya (bad things) with him,” said the nine-year-old girl, tears welling up in her eyes.

The story was the same for her 14-year-old sister: “He told me he wanted to infect me with the virus so that I would die just like his two former wives and my mum who was on her deathbed.”

Days after he had committed the heinous act, the father sent a text message to the two girls’ grandmother, instructing her to buy ARV drugs for her grandchildren because he had defiled them.

EMOTIONAL ANGUISH

“I had never been more scared. The trouble was that the girls remained mum even when I asked them whether their father had really done what he said he had,” recounted their grandmother.

The granny was relieved when the girls tested HIV-negative.

Police Constable Brenda Okwach, a Nyeri-based officer who investigates defilement cases, told of her emotional anguish as she built up the evidence to strengthen the case.

“It was not easy because despite being a police officer, I am a mother,” she said.

Sadly, even as the man was being escorted out of the dock, he was smiling, something which brought those present to anger.