The main suspect in an incident where a 3-year-old boy was kidnapped and his eyes gouged out in Marani, Kisii county, has been arrested.
Alex Maina Ochoki, 26, was arrested on Sunday evening by detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and booked at Marani Police station.
Ochoki, a cousin to Baby Junior Sagini, is believed to have gouged out the minor's eyes for rituals in a scheme involving the suspect's mother identified as Pacifica.
The suspect is being processed for arraignment at the Kisii Law Courts even as detectives seek to arrest his accomplices.
Also set to be arraigned in court is Baby Sagini's mother who police say will face charges of child negligence.
Baby Sagini abducted
Baby Sagini was abducted from his parent's home in Ikuruma village in Marani on Wednesday evening December 14, 2022, before he was found six hours later at the family's banana plantation.
The minor's face was covered with blood when he was found. The unknown person (s) gouged out his eyes before they left.
The boy was rushed to the Kisii Eye Hospital where doctors determined that his sight was permanently damaged.
“Both his eyes had been removed completely, and there are some injuries in the lids…so it looks like there was a sharp instrument like a knife that was used,” a doctor said.
Suspect
Initially, police had arrested the boy's father as a suspect in the investigations but later released him for lack of evidence connecting him to the crime.
The boy's grandmother Rael Mayieka said that her grandson had gone to fetch water from a nearby spring when the incident happened.
The boy was in the company of other children but it is said that he threw his jerrycan into a nearby thicket and started running away.
When the other children got home with their jerrycans full of water, they informed the boy's grandmother of what had happened.
The boy's grandmother went to the spring searching for her grandson but he was nowhere to be seen.
"We tried to look for him but all our efforts proved futile. The following day, his elder brother who had gone to cut grass for the cows pounced on him in a maize plantation and he came home panting to inform us. We rushed to the scene and found the boy writhing in pain and his eyes gouged out," Mayieka said.
