This is a sad tale about Rehema (not her real name) of Kiambu County, who at just 8 and half years old, her life was cut short.
August 21, 2014, began as a normal day for the little girl playing with her brother codenamed T, who at the time was half her age.
They were soon joined by the neighbour's kid, with whom they would continue playing with.
At around 9:30 am, N's brother (the other kid), Eric Kimeu Kimani went over to pick him up.
N, however, started crying and in order to get the boy moving, he asked to have Rehema and her brother escort them to their home.
This was agreed to, by the house help, who planned to pick the siblings shortly after.
However, when she got to Kimeu's home some 30 minutes later, Rehema was nowhere to be seen.
Upon asking where the girl was, Kimeu, who was aged about 16 at the time, told her that the kids went over to another homestead.
This was, however, received with doubt as the househelp could see T there.
She decided to go to the other home but Rehema was not there and she raised the alarm so that other neighbours could help in the search.
At some point during the search, a neighbour realised that Kimeu was behaving weirdly.
This is after he was asked which direction the children had taken and after pointing, he instead took the opposite end.
After a fervent search, Rehema's body was found hours later by another girl in a pit.
There was blood where the girl's body lay but she had no visible wounds or marks.
At the trial court, it was ordered that Kimeu be detained at the President's pleasure and the case was brought to the attention of the President every three years.
He however appealed on several grounds.
Rehema was taken to the mortuary and an autopsy revealed ligature marks around her neck, a thorough penetrating stab wound from the left to the right side of the neck and bruises behind the left ear.
There was also blood oozing from the left ear and internally there were severe blood vessels.
Prior to her death, Rehema had also suffered subterraneous contusions (a bruise beneath the skin) on the left temporal scalp and a fracture of the skull with haemorrhage.
A few days later on the morning of August 24, David Kimani, Kimeu's father, found a note posted on the main door of their house.
The note had a threatening message, a detailed explanation of what had happened to Rehema and the motive behind the murder.
He would then inform a man of the cloth and together they contacted the area chief and the police.
The note was collected and the document examiner found that the handwriting in the note matched Kimeu's.
Kimeu was arrested and arraigned before the High Court where the prosecution produced 12 witnesses.
When he was put on the defence, the teenager denied the charges of murder.
He told the court that he went back home and that the house help would later ask him to help trace Rehema.
He further testified that when he returned home, he saw three men who he did not know, in their compound.
They held him and took him to a neighbouring plot, showed him Rehema's body and confessed to killing her.
Before the court, he admitted that he never told anyone about the incident with the three men and wrote the threatening note.
He said the men had forced him to write the threatening message on a piece of paper and that at the time, he was confused and fearful.
He also said the men had told him not to close the main door of their house that night.
After a careful consideration of the evidence, the trial court found Kimeu guilty and convicted.
On sentence, the court noted Kimeu's age at the time he committed the offence and found that he was a child within the meaning of section 191 of the Children's Act.
Accordingly, the court ordered that he be detained at the President's pleasure and that the case be brought to the attention of the President every three years.
Imprisonment at the President's pleasure refers to detention in prison for an indefinite length of time.
Aggrieved, Kimeu moved to the Court of Appeal challenging the conviction and sentence on the grounds, among others, that his evidence was rejected without any plausible reason.
He also argued whether the sentence was lawful.
Appellate judges Agnes Murgor, Sankale ole Kantai and Mwaniki Gachoka reviewed the case and found that the state had proven the same beyond a reasonable doubt.
This was through the circumstantial evidence tendered by the prosecution witnesses.
On the plausible evidence, the court noted that Kimeu's evidence and the statements under inquiry kept mutating from one scenario to another.
At first, he denied having recognised the writing in the threatening message but on cross-examination, he admitted writing the note.
The court poked holes in his testimony on why he had never informed anyone of the incident with the three men.
"Having analysed the evidence above, we are in agreement that indeed, it was the appellant (Kimeu) who caused the death of the deceased (Rehema) and that the trial court properly applied the doctrine of 'last seen'", the court noted in its judgement dated November 24.
The doctrine of 'last seen alive' is based on circumstantial evidence where the law prescribes that the person last seen with the deceased before their death was responsible for his or her death.
In such circumstances, the accused is expected to provide an explanation as to what happened.
"The chain of events that points to the guilt of the appellant is strengthened by the recovery of the threatening note in their family house," the court noted.
It also found that Kimeu had malice afterthought(premeditation of a crime) considering the horrendous injuries that were inflicted on the 81⁄2-year-old girl.
On sentencing, the court noted that even though Kimeu was a minor by the time of the murder, this did not take away the gravity of the offence and the repercussions of his actions to Rehema's family and to society at large, still lingered on.
The judges went on to impose a sentence of 20 years imprisonment and dismissed the appeal save for the interference of the sentence.
"In conclusion, save for interfering with the sentence, we find that this appeal has no merit and we dismiss it save that the sentence to serve at the president's pleasure is substituted with a sentence of 20 years that shall run from the date of conviction," the judgement reads.
