Police say they will not release the body of murdered Masaka girl until her mother’s DNA test results have been released.
Criminal Investigations and Crime Intelligence Directorate (CID) spokesperson Charles Mansio Twine told reporters in Kampala on September 16 that police wanted to be certain of the maternity of Faith Kyamagero, the slain girl, before burial arrangements could proceed.
He noted that although Gloria and Charles Ssenyonga, Kyamagero’s parents had identified her headless body by the dress and bangles she donned, investigators wanted to be certain that they had given the body to the rightful parents.
Preliminary findings from police investigations suggest that Kyamagero’s head had been chopped off her body by Joseph Nuwashaba, 22, who had lived with the family since the start of the lockdown.
Nuwashaba, who hails from Kizinda in Ishaka-Bushenyi Municipality, was on September 14 intercepted with the head wrapped as a gift to Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga.
Police later conducted DNA tests on the head, and a torso that had been abandoned in Masaka to find out if there was a link between the two body parts.
But even when the DNA test results confirmed a link between the two, CID’s Twine says the case presented a paradox.
There was need for scientific evidence to show that Kyamagero was a daughter of the Ssenyongas, he added.
Noting that the best proof of relationship would come from the mother, Twine says the deceased’s mother was informed about the need to have a sample drawn from her for testing to confirm that Kyamagero was her daughter.
“We are doing that because we don’t want other inconveniences in future, assuming another mother comes and says the deceased was my child,” explained Twine.
“That would mean that police would [incur] other expenses of exhuming the body, then again testing the DNA which would be very inconveniencing.”
It was the need to avoid such inconveniences that prompted police to “hold on the body, have the mother examined for DNA [links].”
