Man jailed 40 years for killing his employer in Eldoret

Eldoret High Court found Silas Sang, who had been employed as a herdsman by 72-year-old Hellen Biwott, guilty of murdering her. 

He committed the said criminal offence on the morning of April 22, 2022, in Kabenes area, Moiben sub-county, Uasin Gishu county.

The slain woman was a small-scale dairy and maize farmer in Uasin Gishu County.

When he was given a chance by Presiding Judge Reuben Nyakundi to defend himself before the verdict, Sang stunned the court when he said that he was driven into the heinous act by a long-standing curse in his family from Nandi County.

The same curse, he told the court, had followed him when he murdered his employer in neighboring Uasin Gishu county.

Sang prevailed upon the Judge to consider his prayers for leniency owing to the ‘bad blood of curse thriving in their family’, adding that he was remorseful for the said criminal offence.

Delivering the ruling, Justice Nyakundi told the convict that he deserves to be sentenced to life in prison owing to the criminal nature of his offence, but decided to hand him a 40-year sentence at the Eldoret G.K. remand prison.

According to the Judge, the prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the convict was behind the brutal murder of his employer. 

Sang was said to have hit the deceased’s head on the wall inside her house before stabbing her on the neck with a knife, where she passed away on the spot.

On learning that he had killed her employer, the convict took off on foot and boarded a matatu en route to Eldoret town before boarding another public service vehicle and alighted at Matete shopping centre in Kakamega County.

He was arrested by a team of police officers attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) unit at Ainabtich police station in Eldoret after seven days in hiding.