The perpetrators who gouged out baby Junior Sagini’s eyes were so inhuman that after making him suddenly blind, they put him in a sack which they placed under a bed. They then proceeded to celebrate by drinking chang’aa and dancing through the night.
After a night of merrymaking, they dumped the sack at a neighbour’s farm at noon the next day and fled the scene.
Criminologists say most, if not all perpetrators, always return to the crime scene. And this is exactly what happened with one of the perpetrators in this case.
The perpetrator then raised alarm, attracting neighbours who then came to the scene.
Kisii Resident Senior Magistrate Christine Ogweno this week sentenced Alex Maina, the key suspect of the heinous act to 40 years behind bars. His accomplices Pacifica Nyakerario and Rael Mayaka got off with leaner sentences of 10 years each.
Maina is Sagini’s cousin. Pacifica is his aunt, while Rael is the minor’s grandmother.
Why the relatives of the young boy who had been left under their care became so cruel that they decided to pluck his eyes is a puzzle that continues to shock Kenyans.
But as the three start their long sentences in prison, a thorough perusal of investigation files, court filings and interviews by sauce.co.ke with the detectives and lawyers involved in the case shows that this was a crime that was never meant to happen.
In fact, Sagini would still have his eyes had his mother not reunited with her estranged husband five years ago into an environment poisoned by poverty, archaic traditions, and jealousy.
What is however certain is that finding and nailing the perpetrators was never going to be difficult. The fact that the case was heard and determined within a record nine months is a testament to this.
Certainly, this was a poorly executed crime. It was so easy for investigators to narrow down the list of suspects. They were able to nail all suspects in court by relying mainly on the evidence of one key witness. Not even the witness’s stuttered speech could weaken the case.
“The witness recognized the accused by their names. She understood their relationship, her relationship with the first accused person, and the other family members. She had a good understanding of the homestead and led the court around it,” noted the Magistrate in her ruling.
“The witness led the court to Pacifica’s house and then to the bedroom where baby Sagini was stashed under the bed. From her demeanor, she was frightened of the accused persons. I observed that she was intimidated by their mere presence,” said the Magistrate.
But to get a thorough understanding on why the crime was executed and how all actors came together, sauce.co.ke decided to go back to the very beginning before things fatally started going south at the Ongaga’s, as Sagini’s family is known in Marani, Kisii county.
For starters, all the actors in the case belong to one family which, according to Ikiruma area chief Aloys Ochogo, was “a very troublesome family which is viewed as evil by the society.”
Rael Mayaka, the third accused in the case is a matriarch of the family. She was married to Ongaga Mayieka, now deceased. Their marriage produced four children including Thomas Ongaga whose health and behaviour despite not being an accused in the case contributed to baby Sagini losing his eyes.
Thomas had a brother called Mayieka Ochogo who died in 2012. Ochogo was married to Pacifica Nyakerario, the second accused.
Pacifica, according to those who know her has 11 children in total, the youngest being 12 years from two marriages including the one to Ochogo. One of Pacifica’s children is Alex Maina, the first accused.
The death of Pacifica’s husband Ochogo in 2012 was, according to evidence filed by witnesses at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), not natural either.
“When Pacifica’s husband Ochogo died, there were rumours that the death was not natural. No one was arrested as the family resolved the issue among themselves,” area chief Aloys Ochogo told the DCI during interrogation.
Claims that Ochogo’s death was caused by witchcraft were never investigated. But his demise set rolling a chain of events that ended up with baby Sagini becoming blind. This is because shortly after Ochogo died, his brother Thomas fell sick.
By then his other siblings, all women, had gotten married and moved to their husbands’ homes. This left the homestead with two people next in line to inherit the land they lived on if Rael died. The two are Thomas and his sister-in-law, Pacifica.
However, since Pacifica is a woman, she cannot inherit the land according to Abagusii culture. Pacifica already has 11 children of her own. Her first son Alex was automatically placed next in line together to inherit the piece of land. The other heir is Alex’s uncle Thomas, who is sickly.
Thomas, according to the lead investigator Chief Inspector Wesonga, is a drunk and is mentally challenged. He also has no children.
In order to balance the equation, Thomas’s sister Mary Kemunto arranged a marriage between his brother and Maureen Nyaboke in 2015. The marriage however did not work because of Thomas’s alcoholism. Maureen left after a year in marriage, on June 30, 2016.
She would however return to the union in 2019 after Rael beseeched her.
“I returned in 2019 after Rael asked me to go back home,” recalled Nyaboke to investigators.
Nyaboke did not however return to the Ongaga homestead alone. She had given birth to two children during her period of separation with Alex. She brought the two children, Sagini and his elder sister Shantel, with her into the troubled homestead.
Sagini’s arrival immediately upset an already dicey situation. Being male, the equation on land inheritance became unbalanced since according to culture, he stands to inherit his father’s property.
“In the absence of Thomas, the victim’s step-father, baby Sagini would stand to inherit the land,” chief inspector Wasonga would later tell the court.
“Pacifica had several children, some not sired by Rael’s son thus the need for more land,” said the inspector.
Things took a turn for the worse shortly after Nyaboke moved in with her children. Thomas’s health condition deteriorated. He sank deeper into alcoholism. Rael then asked Nyaboke to look for a job. This is because she was too old to take care of her son Thomas, Nyaboke, Sagini and Shantel.
“I got a job within Nyamakoru area in Kisii as a bar tender but I did not like it. I was lucky to get another job as a shop attendant in Nakuru. I left my two children with Rael, whom I was sending upkeep money,” Nyaboke said during interrogation.
Unknown to Nyaboke, she had left her two young children in a dangerous environment. As it would be revealed in a probation report filed in court, the family was not a safe space at all for children.
Apart from all the adults being addicted to alcohol, there was incest practiced by some family members. There was also violence meted towards the young children.
Additionally, the family was also thought to be practicing witchcraft by their neighbours who feared them. The fear was so much that police had a difficult time getting witness statements after Sagini’s eyes were gouged out.
In fact, after his eyes were gouged Sagini suffered from insomnia when he was put under the care of the government. He continuously kept saying “You witch; you took away my eyes.”
“The children’s violent behaviour was indicative of their home environment. Sagini would use abusive language towards anyone,” Josephine Kirimi, a social worker wrote in her assessment of the minor.
“He had wounds on the neck and feet. My assessment was that the children lived in a violent environment and did not feed well,” she said.
In fact Nyaboke had a hint that something was not okay with her children way before Sagini’s eyes were gouged out. Shantel’s school at some point even called her and told her that her daughter was missing school.
She immediately took a bus from Nakuru to Kisii to find out what was wrong. On arrival in Kisii, a village elder told her that she had heard rumours that her daughter had been defiled by her stepfather.
“When I spoke to my daughter she said that she had not been defiled. She said that it was her aunt Pacifica who had told her to lie so that they would leave the homestead, as there wasn’t enough land,” said Nyaboke in investigation files.
Interestingly, Nyaboke ignored the three red flags and downplayed her instincts.
You witch; you took my eyes. Give me back my eyes!
Baby Sagini
It is unclear why Nyaboke assumed that things were fine. In her own submission, she told the police that she was not in talking terms with Pacifica despite the fact that they lived in the same compound.
“Pacifica would spit whenever I passed near her,” she told investigators.
“She told me severally to leave the homestead because of land. She was also cruel to Shantel,” she said.
It is not known what caused the relationship between Pacifica and Nyaboke to deteriorate that much, that all the anger was suddenly directed at Sagini, an innocent three-year-old who was too young to understand the issues within his family.
What we know is that on December 13 last year, Sagini suddenly lost her eyesight in the hands of his cousin and with the knowledge of her aunt and grandmother who not only helped to conceal the crime but celebrated his misfortune.
The perpetrators might have escaped arrest had the girlfriend to the key suspect not witnessed the whole ordeal.
The woman, who is Alex Maina’s partner, and who is currently under a witness protection program for her safety, narrated to investigators and the court what exactly happened.
According to her, Maina and Thomas left to go and drink at around 2 pm, on the day Sagini’s eyes were gouged out. Pacifica and Rael were not within the homestead as they were attending a burial within the village.
Maina then returned after a while and went to the kitchen where he took a knife. When his girlfriend, identified in court as PW 11, asked Maina what he was going to do with the knife, he threatened to stab her.
He then proceeded to a napier grass farm without knowing that his girlfriend was following him.
“Maina then gorged out Sagini’s eyes one after the other. He then went to his mother’s house and told her what he had done. Pacifica became worried,” Maina’s girlfriend told investigators.
When Maina discovered that his girlfriend was listening to him talk to Pacifica, he pursued her with the knife. She escaped to Kegogi, a nearby market. Upon her return in the evening, she saw Maina, Pacifica and Rael put Sagini in a sack.
Maina got the sack from their house. Pacifica and Nyakerario held the sack while Maina put Sagini inside it,” recalled Maina’s girlfriend.
“They took the sack to Pacifica’s house and placed it under the bed. The three then partook chang’aa while dancing, as Sagini lay under the bed inside the sack,” she said.
Later that night Maina and her sister Moraa escorted Pacifica to the bus station where she boarded a vehicle to Nairobi. She was carrying a chicken and a bag full of clothes.
“Alex returned later that night. He was drunk. When I asked him where he had taken the sack and Sagini, he said that he had thrown it far away near a maize plantation. He then instructed me to pack my clothes and leave his house,” Maina’s girlfriend told the police.
Sagini was discovered the next day at around noon by Obadia Ogamba, a 17-year-old minor who was grazing his father’s cows.
“Sagini was asleep. I called Rael and together we carried him to Rael’s house. He had dried blood stains in his eyes. He was also wearing the same clothes he had the previous day, but they were torn,” said Obadia.
“Once in Rael’s house, neighbours started gathering. Everyone, including Rael, then started screaming,” he said.
Part 2: Investigations and arrest of culprits continues tomorrow