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, both 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 home in KMC Estate. Their parents had been searching for them, visiting hospitals and mortuaries, until fresh clues emerged on Tuesday afternoon.
A Nairobi salesman had gone to the station to pick up his detained car, a Toyota Belta, and informed the officers that there was a foul smell coming from the boot. When the officers opened the boot, they found the two bodies wrapped in a black paper bag.
‘When the owner came to pick the car, he realised that there was a strange cargo in the boot of the car, which was wrapped in a black paper bag,’ said an investigating officer.
Government pathologists were called to the scene to help with the investigations, and investigators from the DCI Homicide Unit took over the case. The parents of the children were summoned to the police station to confirm that the bodies were those of their loved ones.
The pathologists and DCI officers could not immediately establish whether there were any visible injuries on the bodies, and there was no blood stains either on the minors’ clothes or in the vehicle.
Investigators said the bodies were decomposing and could have been inside the car for well over a week. The police station is about two kilometres from the estate where the children are reported to have gone missing.
