Night Guard Killed During Raid at Boarding School in Trans Nzoia
According to police, the victim is Julius Masinde, 39 years old, who was working as the school’s night watchman.
Photo: Courtesy.
By Robert Mutasi
Detectives are investigating the killing of a night guard after a night raid at a boarding school in Kitale, Trans Nzoia County.
The incident happened in the Bondeni area and was reported on Wednesday morning.
According to police, the victim is Julius Masinde, 39 years old, who was working as the school’s night watchman.
Police said the incident was first discovered by students. At around 4:05 a.m., students had woken up to fetch water, which is normal in boarding schools. While fetching water, they discovered that several water taps had been vandalized, meaning they had been broken and damaged.
The students reported this to the school matron. The matron is the female staff in charge of welfare in a boarding school. When she heard about the broken taps, she started looking for the night watchman to ask what had happened.
She searched around the school compound and found him lying face down in a pool of blood behind the school’s parking area. He had already died.
Police officers were called to the scene and established that unknown intruders, meaning people who were not allowed, had entered the school compound at night. The intruders had vandalized eight water taps.
Investigators believe the watchman saw them and confronted them, trying to stop them. A violent struggle then happened between the watchman and the attackers. During the struggle, Masinde was attacked with a sharp weapon and sustained multiple deep cut wounds to the head. The wounds caused his death.
After killing him, the suspects escaped through the school’s perimeter fence, which is the fence that surrounds the school for security. Police said they saw drops of blood on the fence, which suggests that some of the attackers may also have been injured during the fight with the watchman.
The murder weapon was not found at the scene.
However, crime scene investigators documented and processed the scene and collected several items as exhibits. The items collected include one vandalized water tap, a catapult, a muffin, and a wrapped handle suspected to belong to a sharp weapon. These items will be taken for forensic examination to help identify the attackers.
The body of the watchman was later moved to Kijana Wamalwa Hospital Mortuary, where it is waiting for a post-mortem examination. A post-mortem is a medical examination done to confirm the exact cause of death.
Detectives from DCI Trans Nzoia West are now handling the investigation of both the killing and the school break-in. By Thursday, police said no arrests had been made yet, but investigators are following leads to arrest the suspects.
The incident has caused fear among parents and staff of the boarding school, raising questions about security in schools, especially at night when intruders target school property like water taps and metals.
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