This archive report was first published on 17 July 2020.
Trail Going Cold in Probe on Mystery Deaths of Children ¶
On June 11, two children, Alvina Mutheu and Henry Jacktone, aged three and four, went missing in Athi River, Kenya. Their bodies were later found inside a car in the police station parking lot, sparking a probe that has gone cold.
According to police accounts, the children navigated a 2.5-kilometer distance from their home in Njoguini estate to the police station before locking themselves inside a wrecked car. However, their parents dispute this claim, saying it is a lie.
"We don't have a car. Those children do not know how car doors are opened. And even if they really wanted to open a car door, there are so many vehicles around here to make them go all the way to a police station and lock themselves in," said Alvina's mother, Catherine Munyiva.
The case has been under investigation by the Homicide Department at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) for over a month, but detectives have failed to make headway. Sources close to the investigation have told the Nation that detectives are considering requesting for a public inquest.
By Thursday, at least 15 police officers from the Athi River Police Station had recorded statements with the DCI. Detectives wanted to find out how the children ended up in the parking lot unseen and how no one noticed the stench of their decomposing bodies for that long.
"There are too many theories out there but it is only God who knows and one day the truth will be known," said Jacktone's father, Cliftone Odhiambo.
Alvina and Jacktone were last seen at about 10:30am on June 11 watching an earth mover that was digging trenches 20 metres from the apartment their families live in. Jacktone was reported as having gone missing at 3:53pm on OB number 50 at the Athi River Police Station. Alvina's disappearance was reported the same day at 3:58pm as OB number 53.
Government pathologist Johansen Oduor says the only hope lies on a forensic entomologist to tell exactly when the two children died, a process whose results will take another two weeks.
"We could not establish the cause of the deaths because their bodies were badly decomposed," said Mr Oduor.
NO FRACTURES
"There were no fractures on their bones and we cannot attribute their deaths to any specific cause. We are now relying on the police and results from the government lab," he added.
Alvina's body was in a purple sweater, purple trousers with a red stripe and orange gumboots. These are the clothes Alvina was last wearing when she was reported missing. They prompted the police to call her parents.
"On the same morning they called us, my wife was at the station a few hours before the police said they might have found them but they did not tell her anything," says Alvina's father Stephen Mulinge.
"Every time we went to the station the police told us to look for the children and call them if we find them. That is what they told me a few hours before calling us to the station to identify the bodies," responds Alvina's mother Catherine Munyiva.
