The High Court in Nyeri has sentenced 35-year-old Nicholas Julius Macharia to death for the murder of seven-year-old Tamara Blessing Kabura.
While handing down the sentence on Thursday, February 19, Justice Magare Kizito addressed Macharia’s decision to plead guilty, noting that it did not lessen the gravity of the offence.
He argued that the admission of guilt may be useful in other cases but not for murder, especially one as heinous as his.
“Though you pleaded guilty, that plea of guilty does not by itself remove the seriousness of the sentence. It is a good thing to save judicial time, but the mere fact that time was saved in the hearing of this matter does not shorten the sentence. It may be useful in smaller cases, but for murder, that does not count,” he said.
Macharia was convicted over the killing of the Tamara, a Grade One pupil at Judah Academy was killed on May 24, 2025, within Nyeri Township.
The court heard that on the evening of her murder, the child met Macharia, a man familiar with her family through her mother and grandmother.
Trusting him, she accompanied him to his house in Witemere, where he defiled her, killed her and concealed her body under his bed in an attempt to cover up the crime.
Tamara had earlier been reported missing by her mother, Susan Wanjiru, after she disappeared from the Nyeri Town open-air market, where Wanjiru runs a small business.
A desperate two-day search ended after CCTV footage from a nearby car spare parts shop showed Macharia walking with the child towards his residence.
Detectives arrested Macharia on May 26, 2025, and he later led them to his house where the girl’s body was recovered.
A post-mortem examination conducted at the County Referral Hospital mortuary on May 30, 2025, established that the minor had been defiled before being suffocated to death.
Investigators told the court that Macharia had recorded a confession a day before the examination, admitting to committing the offence.
