Man who beheaded his grandma gets 35 years

Just like the biblical rage that caused Cain to kill his brother Abel over land, a man’s burning anger against his grandmother drove him to behead her.

He will serve 35 years in prison for the crime committed in 2013 in Nyakach, Kisumu county.

That was the ruling on May 30 of the Court of Appeal that commuted his death sentence and called the crime “heinous”.

Thomas Atella had argued repeatedly with his grandmother over a tree that he wanted to fell for his charcoal-burning business but she refused.

Atella kept demanding to cut down the tree and burn it. She kept refusing.

He had followed the old woman to her farm and hauled her under a mango tree where he slashed her neck, severing her head.

A witness in the murder trial testified that after the crime, he was heard shouting, “Whatever happens should happen,” and “That woman has insulted me enough.”

The court was told that after the murder, Atella was seen wielding a bloodied panga, threatening anyone who would report him that their fate would be like that “of the woman down there”.

Another witness, a grandchild of the victim, testified that “her head was cut badly like meat in a butchery.’’

He recalled the previous day, Atella had visited his grandmother and said he would cut the tree to make charcoal, and if she refused, he would kill her.

The High Court convicted him on September 21, 2017, and sentenced him to death.

Atella appealed and the Court of Appeal on May 30 upheld the conviction but commuted the sentence to 35 years.

“Consequently, this appeal, which is against the sentence only, succeeds to the extent that the death penalty is set aside and substituted with a prison sentence of 35 years,” the judgment read. 

The justices ruled, “In the circumstances of this case, we find that the appellant harboured the thought of ending the deceased’s life and his acts were not out of impulse. The injuries suffered by the deceased speak to the heinous nature of the act.”

They cited his attitude, calling it “barbaric, not just towards the deceased but also the young grandchildren who have been left with lifetime trauma”.