The state prosecutor has today said that the prime suspect in the murder of National Lands Commission (NLC) official Jenniffer Itumbi is not fit to stand trial.
This was revealed before the Machakos High Court Judge David Kemei, where the prosecution told the court that the test conducted on the accused showed he was mentally unstable.
The suspect’s lawyer Doreen Mwau told the court that her client was scheduled to undergo a second mental review on June 14.
“My client is unable to plead to the murder charge, since the mental assessment report done by Dr. Ruth Korir on the suspect shows he is mentally unstable,” Mwau said.
Peter Mwangi Njenga alias Sankale did not take a plea.
The suspect will undergo another assessment after three weeks.
Justice Kemei directed that the matter be mentioned on June 22 in Kajiado and that the suspect be returned to Muthaiga Police Station in Nairobi where he had been detained.
Sankale was arrested early this month after he was placed at the scene of crime by forensic evidence as well as witnesses who saw him with the deceased the last time she was seen alive on March 12, 2021.
DCI director George Kinoti said homicide detectives through a painstaking forensic dragnet which involved Njenga’s sister made the arrest possible.
Kinoti said the detectives through criminal intelligence first forensically placed the suspect at the scene of crime.
“They managed to establish eyewitnesses who saw the suspect with the deceased the last time she was seen alive on March 12th 2021,” Kinoti said.
Detectives further established that the suspect preyed on the deceased as she prayed, before he made his move to sexually assault her and strangle her to death.”
Sleuths drawn from the Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau (CRIB), upon further profiling of the suspect, established that he was also a jailbird.
The criminal data system, as stated by the detectives, shockingly revealed that the suspect had committed similar offences in the past, using the same technique of robbing and sexually abusing his victims before killing them.