By BOB WASWANI
May 21. 2026| For one Bungoma family, the horrors of December 21, 2011 never truly ended.
More than a decade after a gang of armed men descended on their rural home in Ndalu under the cover of darkness, killing two relatives and sexually assaulting survivors, the Court of Appeal in Kisumu has upheld the conviction of one of the attackers, bringing a painful chapter back into public memory.
In a judgment delivered on May 15, appellate judges Milton S. A. Makhandia, Hellen Omondi Amollo Owino and Luka Kiprotich Kimaru dismissed the appeal of Kennedy Toili Barasa, ruling that DNA evidence irrefutably linked him to one of the most violent robbery incidents ever witnessed in the area.
Court records paint the picture of a nightmare that unfolded between 1am and 3.30am as armed attackers stormed the family compound wielding pangas, simis and metal bars.
The gang beat victims mercilessly, robbed the family of cash and valuables, withdrew money from M-Pesa accounts and unleashed sexual violence on a pregnant woman and her 12-year-old daughter.
By dawn, two members of the family — a father and his son — lay dead.
The surviving victims carried not only physical injuries, but emotional scars that have lasted for years.
Barasa had been convicted by a Bungoma court and initially sentenced to death before the High Court later substituted the punishment with life imprisonment. His co-accused was acquitted.
In his final appeal, Barasa argued that none of the witnesses identified him during the attack and questioned why investigators targeted him in the first place.
His defence insisted the prosecution case was built on suspicion and complained that investigators who linked him to the crime were never called to testify.
But the appellate judges said science spoke louder than denial.
“DNA evidence produced by the Government Analyst conclusively linked him to the offences,” the judges ruled.
The court noted that DNA samples recovered from the complainants’ clothes matched Barasa’s blood samples, placing him directly at the crime scene despite the darkness and confusion of the attack.
The judges said the forensic findings corroborated the testimony of survivors and erased any possibility of mistaken identity.
While none of the victims managed to visually identify their attackers during the terrifying ordeal, the court said the DNA evidence formed an unbroken chain connecting Barasa to the robbery and sexual assault.
The judges further upheld findings that one of the women had been raped by Barasa during the attack.
“The conviction was not only supported by sufficient evidence; it was compelled by the weight of the record,” the court ruled.
The judgment now closes one of the final legal avenues in a case that shook Bungoma and left a family permanently shattered.
For the survivors, however, the ruling is unlikely to erase memories of the screams, bloodshed and terror of that night — a night when a home turned into a scene of unimaginable brutality.