A Kakamega man who spent six years in remand prison walked out a free man on Monday after the High Court threw out murder charges against him because of shocking police blunders.
Dickson Mulama Bahati had been accused of killing Erick Manyonyi Shamwama in December 2018. Prosecutors alleged Dickson, another suspect who died during the trial, and Erick fought over a woman named Josephine and hacked Erick to death with machetes.
But the case never had a single eyewitness. Police pinned everything on a laboratory report claiming Erick’s blood was found on a T-shirt supposedly belonging to Dickson.
Justice Anthony Bett was blunt: he called the police handling of the evidence so careless that the DNA result was useless.
The judge noted that officers seized blood-stained clothes from both suspects but failed to record which items belonged to whom. When taken to the government chemist, only Dickson’s name appeared on official documents. The second suspect’s name was mysteriously missing.
The court was stunned to hear that investigators even told the suspects to call relatives to bring them clean clothes before officers collected the stained ones. Justice Bett described this as “shockingly casual” and said the procedure destroyed the chain of custody beyond repair.
With no witnesses and compromised scientific evidence, the court ruled the prosecution had no case to present. Dickson was acquitted and walked free unless wanted for another offence.
