A former student of the United States International University-Africa (USIU-Africa) has been sentenced to death for abducting and killing a fellow student 14 years ago.
High Court Judge Kanyi Kimondo sentenced Duncan Livingstone Kimathi, 37, on Thursday, October 29, 2026. Kimathi was convicted of murdering Sarah Akello Aruwa, a final-year International Relations student, between June 30 and July 1, 2012, in the Kwamaiko area of Githunguri, Kiambu County.
The judge ruled that the killing was planned. He found that Kimathi had acted with malice aforethought because Akello had been deliberately drawn into a trap, abducted and held for ransom before she was killed.
The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (ODPP), which secured the conviction, said the prosecution team, led by Millicent Kigira, called 17 witnesses to explain how Akello was abducted, how ransom was demanded from her family, and how she was killed.
On the day she went missing, Akello told a friend that she was going to meet a man she had come across at the university library. She had written the name Daniel Muriithi and a phone number in her notebook. However, the court found that Kimathi did not know anyone by that name and concluded that the name was used to lure her.
According to the evidence, the kidnappers later contacted Akello’s family and demanded Sh100,000 for her release.
“Her mother, Hellen Atieno Aruwa, testified that a man called her using her daughter’s mobile phone and demanded the ransom. She negotiated the amount down to Sh70,000 before reporting the matter to Kasarani Police Station,” the ODPP said.
Akello’s boyfriend also told the court that when he called her phone, a man answered and told him to send Sh100,000 to her mobile money account as ransom.
With no eyewitnesses, the case relied largely on circumstantial and digital evidence. A car-hire company testified that it rented a Toyota NZE to Kimathi on the morning of June 30, 2012, while GPS records placed the vehicle near the area where the body was found.
Detectives also recovered Akello’s underwear and a bloodstained top from a house in Savannah where Kimathi’s girlfriend lived.
A postmortem examination showed that Akello died from neck compression caused by manual strangulation. It also revealed a wound on the back of her head and bruises on her neck. Kimathi denied the charges, saying he knew nothing about the car hire or the ransom demands.
Justice Kimondo convicted him of murder under Section 203 as read with Section 204 of the Penal Code on September 23, 2026. His co-accused, a woman, absconded after being released on bail, and the court ordered that the trial continue in her absence.
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