KENYA: FATHER SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR POISONING, STABBING TWO DAUGHTERS

June 23, 2026:

The High Court of Nairobi, Kenya, on June 23, 2026 issued a death sentence against a man found guilty of the murders of his two daughters.
Judge Kanyi Kimondo sentenced 48-year-old Joseph Simiyu Constant to capital punishment after finding him guilty of the premeditated double murder of his daughters, Melisa and Venesa Simiyu, aged 3 and 9, who were poisoned and then stabbed.
The crime was committed on January 22, 2019, inside the family home in Shauri Moyo, a neighborhood in Nairobi.
The murders reportedly took place within a context of severe family crisis. Constant had kicked his wife out of the house, and the young girls were temporarily left under his custody. The judge emphasized that the crime was calculated and cruel, likely aimed at sending a "message" to his estranged wife.
The man allegedly poisoned his daughters first by mixing a lethal substance into an orange drink, and then stabbed them repeatedly on the left side of the chest to hit vital organs.
Police found the girls' bodies lying face down on a mattress on the floor. Next to them was Constant, alive but with self-inflicted stab wounds and a suicide note announcing his planned (but failed) suicide.
The criminal trial was recorded as Republic v Joseph Simiyu Constant (Case No. 9 of 2019).
Government forensic experts found traces of poison in the samples taken from the stomachs and livers of the young victims.
The prosecution described Constant as a repeat offender "incapable of rehabilitation," as the man had already accumulated two prior criminal convictions before this crime.