Calls for justice dominate as Joyce Syombua, her two children buried in Kitui

Thirty-one-year-old Joyce Syombua and her two children, Shanice Maua, 10, and Prince Michael, 5, were on Saturday, December 7, buried at Syombua’s parents’ home in Kyaithani Village, Yatta in Kitui County.

The three, who had gone missing on October 26, were found buried in a shallow grave in Makaburini, Thingithu area in Laikipia County on November 16.

Joyce Syombua’s estranged husband, Peter Mugure, who has since been relieved of his duties as a soldier, is the key suspect in their killing. Syombua and her children had visited Mugure at his work-station in Nanyuki, Laikipia, when they were murdered.

And, during the mother-and-children’s burial on Saturday, calls for justice dominated the speakers’ agenda amid the somber mood.

Each of the burial ceremony attendees, who spoke at the function, urged the State to expedite the justice process, and those behind the trio’s killing be subjected to punishment.

“Humble, loving and caring” were the descriptions used on all the three by different speakers. No relative from Mugure’s side attended the burial.

Postmortem examination conducted on the three revealed that Joyce Syombua was fatally struck in the head using a blunt object, whereas her children were strangled.

On Friday, December 6, Mugure failed to take plea in the trio’s murder case that he is linked to following an application by the prosecution to have him detained at King’ong’o Maximum Prison.

In the request made before Justice Jairus Ngaah, Senior Assistant Director of Public Prosecution, Peter Mailanyi, told the court that Mugure was yet to undergo a complete mental assessment, which is a mandatory procedure in a murder trial.

Mailanyi told the judge that an attempt to have the suspect undergo a psychiatrist examination at the Nanyuki Referral Hospital on Thursday, December 5, failed after the doctor declined to sign the medical report.

The prosecutor claimed the doctor had insisted on initially talking to a relative of the accused person before she could sign the medical report.

As a result, Mugure’s plea date was pushed back by 12 days.