Police in Lanet, Bahati Sub-county are holding a couple for killing their newborn daughter hours after she was born.
Bahati Police commander Francis Mwangi said the 32-year-old woman and her 36-year-old husband strangled the infant after she was born on February 17, 2020.
The couple is said to have committed the heinous act six hours after the baby girl was born in their house at Umoja Estate in Lanet.
“Our investigations have established that the baby was born at around 11 pm. She was killed at 4 am,” the police commander said.
The officer said the woman’s mother, who was eagerly anticipating the birth of her granddaughter, raised alarm on February 18 when she realised her daughter had delivered, but the baby was nowhere to be seen.
“The woman suspected that her daughter had either given birth or terminated the pregnancy. She wasn’t sure, but she requested us to investigate,” said the officer.
After the report was made, officers from Lanet Police Station raided the couple’s single-roomed house. The pair confessed to killing their newborn citing joblessness and inability to feed the child.
“They told detectives that they killed the baby because they are jobless and had nothing to feed her,” said the officer.
According to neighbors, the couple depended on manual labour to feed their three children aged between 3 and 10.
During interrogation, the suspects said they could not even afford rent for the room they were living in.
The couple is said to have dumped the baby’s body in a latrine. It was retrieved on Tuesday and moved to the Rift Valley Provincial General Hospital.
Police said the two will be arraigned to face murder charges.
