This archive report was first published on 22 June 2020.
On March 27, 2014, a tragic event unfolded in East Kachieng' Sub-location, Ndhiwa Sub-county, that would change the lives of a family forever.
A 12-year-old boy, Derickson Otieno, had been playing football with his peers when he was taken away by his father, Polycarp Onyango, and brought to their home. The court heard that Onyango tethered his son to a tree, and his mother, Margaret Licha Yogo, emerged with a yellow jerrican and doused the boy with kerosene.
Yogo then handed Onyango a matchbox, which he used to set his son alight. The boy's sister watched in shock as her brother screamed for help and ran, succumbing to 57% burns 38 days later.
Onyango has since died, but Yogo was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. The court concluded that the boy's attackers were people he trusted as a child.
“Better a death caused by a stranger than by a parent and grandparent for the curse of generations to come loom yonder. The tethering of the deceased on a tree and the deliberate dousing of paraffin on the deceased lead us to find that the appellant deserves no leniency,” read the verdict.
