Judge acquits farm guard in teen's drowning death, finds prosecution case insufficient

On April 30, 2023, a thirteen-year-old boy named Elijah Jabez Ekweny went to graze livestock near a sugarcane plantation in Trans Nzoia county, in western Kenya. He and three friends—Peter Juma Musumba, Moses Wafula, and Sammy Chabeda Kibendi—were at the '40 Million farm' when three of them decided to slip into the nearby plantation to steal sugarcane, leaving Ekweny waiting by the roadside. What followed was a chase, a river crossing, and a death that would occupy a courtroom for three years.

Lazarus Khaoya Mukhanya, the guard employed to protect the sugarcane farm, confronted the teenagers while carrying a machete. The boys ran toward River Sabwani, which was swollen from recent rains and moving fast. Mukhanya pursued them into the water. According to testimony from Musumba, the guard pulled him from the river and Wafula managed to escape by crossing to the other side. But Ekweny did not emerge. When Musumba told Mukhanya that someone was still in the water, the guard replied that he would retrieve him later. The boy's body was found roughly 500 meters downstream. A postmortem examination determined the cause of death was asphyxia from drowning.

The state charged Mukhanya with murder. The prosecution's theory was straightforward: the guard had chased the teenager into the dangerous current and then stood by and watched him drown without attempting a rescue or even calling for help. Police testimony at trial stated that Mukhanya had seen the boys enter the river and made no effort to save the deceased or raise an alarm. The boy's father, Reverend Joseph Ekwen Jakait, testified that Mukhanya's actions had caused his son's death and sought accountability from the court.

Mukhanya's defense was equally direct. He said he was doing his job—protecting the farm from thieves. He denied forcing anyone into the water. His account held that he had seen two boys in the river and rescued Musumba while Wafula escaped on his own. The river was swollen and dangerous, he said, and he did not see Ekweny in the water. He also testified that he had warned one of the boys against jumping into the treacherous current.

On September 26, 2026, Justice Robert Limo delivered his ruling. The court found the prosecution had failed to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The judge noted that nothing in the evidence showed Mukhanya had forced the boys—or Ekweny specifically—to jump into the swollen river. The teenagers had made that choice themselves to avoid being caught. The judge also observed that it was doubtful whether Mukhanya, as a farm guard, had any legal duty to risk his own life attempting a rescue in such dangerous conditions, or whether he would have been physically capable of doing so. The court concluded there was insufficient evidence that the accused bore criminal responsibility for the boy's death.

With that judgment, the case closed. Mukhanya walked free. The three years of legal proceedings—the investigation, the charges, the trial testimony, the postmortem findings—had led to an acquittal. For the community in Trans Nzoia county, the outcome settled nothing about what happened that day at River Sabwani, only that the law could not prove Mukhanya guilty of murder.