This archive report was first published on 2 July 2020.
On July 2, 2020, a shocking discovery was made at the Athi-River Police Station in Machakos, Kenya. The bodies of two children, Alvina Mutheu and Henry Jacktone, aged four, were found in the boot of a car that had been parked at the station for over three months.
The children had gone missing on June 11, 2020, while playing outside their house in KMC Estate. Their parents had been searching for them, visiting hospitals and mortuaries, until fresh clues emerged on Tuesday afternoon.
A Nairobi salesman, who had gone to the station to pick up his detained car, informed the officers that there was a foul smell coming from the boot of his Toyota Belta. The vehicle had been involved in an accident on Mombasa Road on March 4, 2020, and had been lying at the station for over three months.
When the salesman opened the boot, he found the two bodies covered in a black paper bag. The officers then opened the bag and confirmed the discovery. Government pathologists were called to the scene to help with the investigations.
Investigators from the DCI Homicide Unit took over the case, and the parents of the children were summoned to the police station to confirm the identities of the bodies. The pathologists and DCI officers were unable to establish whether there were any visible injuries on the bodies or any blood stains on the minors' clothes or in the vehicle.
The investigation is ongoing, with the police following two theories: that the children could have been killed and their bodies sneaked into the car inside the police station, or that they could have strayed from their homes into the police station and locked themselves in the vehicle where they suffocated.
