What will I tell our children? Kipyegon Kenei wife cries

What will I tell our children when they grow up? Who will help me raise them?” Judy Chepsoi, the widow of slain Administration Police Sergeant Kipyegon Kenei, wailed on Friday, unable to contain the pain and trauma of losing a husband so tragically.

A few metres away, the lifeless body of her husband lay in a wooden casket. Hundreds of friends, relatives and well-wishers had queued to view the remains of Kenei, the police officer killed in mysterious circumstances at the height of investigations into a fake tender for arms.

INFINITELY HURT

Everything around Judy appeared hazy. Life had lost meaning. The young widow of an equally young police officer could barely comprehend what was going on around her. She looked lost. Beaten. Hurt. Infinitely hurt.

“It’s hard for me to believe he is dead,” she wailed as she looked at the lifeless, cold body of her husband. “But I leave it to God.”

Unable to stand on her own, she was helped away from the coffin. Tears streamed down her face and her frail body, battered for 17 days by the agony of losing her husband, convulsed in such unbearable emotion.

READ: Kenei family wants phone data made public

As she cried the pain away, members of her family milled around her, as if to protect her from the prying eyes of death. Her father-in-law, Mr John Chesang, steadied himself and agreed to a short interview. He, too, had just viewed the body of his son at Umash Funeral Home in Nakuru.

“We are finally at ease after the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) boss George Kinoti revealed that my son was murdered. However, what we want to know are the contents of the data that was recovered from his phone. Let that be made public, just like what happened at the Deputy President William Ruto’s office.”

DRAMATIC RELEASE
He was referring to the dramatic release by the DCI on Thursday of surveillance video footage that showed how former Sports minister Rashid Echesa and his entourage of local and foreign partners were allowed unfettered access to Mr Ruto’s Harambee House Annex office, where documents for the fake Sh39 billion arms tender are believed to have been signed.

Mr Ruto has said he was not aware of the deal and was not even in the office when Mr Echesa, who has already been questioned by detectives, and his team visited.

In Nakuru on Friday, as the political undertones of the murder rose to a crescendo and criminal investigations gathered pace, Mr Chesang said that although the family had received the post-mortem report on the death of his fourth-born son, that alone was not enough to identify the killers and bring them to book.

“At least one or two people should be arrested in connection with the death of my son before his burial,” said Mr Chesang. “That would be such a relief to us as a family.”

READ: Kenei murder: 'Crooks, cartels' must be punished, Ruto says
The remains of Kenei are expected to be interred today in Chemasis sub-location, Rongai. By last evening, no suspect had been arrested in connection with the murder, indicating that Mr Chesang’s wish might not be granted.

A sombre mood had engulfed the small funeral home in Nakuru where Kenei’s body was displayed for public viewing. Family, relatives and friends had started trooping in as early as 9am, and the pain and despair in their chests exploded into floods of tears and uncontrollable wailing when the hearse carrying the body arrived at noon from the Chiromo Funeral Home in Nairobi. Mourners viewed the body for about an hour before it was wheeled into the mortuary.

SECURITY BEEFED UP
In Chemasis, Sub-Chief Samuel Totola said about 5,000 mourners were expected to attend Saturday’s burial ceremony.

“All preparations are in place,” he said. “We are ready to receive our son for burial. Security has already been beefed up.”

The events in Nakuru unfolded as it emerged in Nairobi that Kenei’s killers made glaring blunders that could prove key to identifying them and establishing a motive.

While detectives and pathologists have described Kenei’s house in Villa Franca, Imara Daima, as the primary scene of the crime, they are yet to confirm whether he was killed elsewhere and his body dumped there, as hinted by the results of a forensic analysis of the small house where his body was found.

A slightly latched door, a neatly made bed, lack of blood spatter on the Jericho pistol next to his body, and a mobile phone whose date had been deleted and SIM card removed are some of the glaring ‘mistakes’ that the assassins made. Detectives have marked these as red flags for use in getting leads in the ongoing investigation.

The position of Kenei’s body on the floor of his rented bedsitter was also marked as inconsistent with a fall that would result from a self-inflicted chin gunshot, and even more puzzling, his hands contained no burn marks, blood spots or gun powder residue.

A spent cartridge found lodged in his upper pyjama and the position of the gun next to his body are also inconsistent with suicide, detectives said.

“Self-inflicted gunshot victims’ hands commonly retain the firing position even after death,” Mr Kinoti said last Thursday. “The gun travels with him along with the cartridge all the way down.”

A gunshot demonstration conducted at the same location by detectives was heard loudly around the Imara Daima neighbourhood where the body was found, yet neighbours said they had not heard a similar sound earlier.

VISIBLE MARKS
“How could a gunshot kill someone without the neighbours hearing anything, and yet when a demo was conducted at the same location later, the gunshots were very loud? Shots muffled by cotton were also audible outside the bedsitter,” detectives noted.

Additionally, post-mortem examination results showed that Kenei’s body contained no visible marks of injuries, which further negated the suicide theory. This confirmed that Kenei neither fell nor struggled with his killers at the time of murder.

The contradictions point to the possibility that Kenei was killed elsewhere and his body dumped at his house.

Detectives are working to establish any other locations that the assassins and Kenei visited before the sound of the door latch was heard by the housegirl of the main house located directly opposite the officer’s bedsitter.

Mr Kinoti said the motive of Kenei’s killing is not clear, though he was definitely involved in the fake arms deal. He noted that Kenei had, on February 18, called a close friend to ask for guidance on how statements are recorded, implying a willingness to speak to investigators as directed by his superiors.

RECEIVED SUMMONS

This was on the same day he and his colleagues received summons to appear before the DCI on the following day for interviews and statement recording on the events of February 13, the day Mr Echesa and two Polish businessmen held a meeting at DP Ruto’s office complex.

They were accompanied by Clifford Okoth, Kennedy Oyoo and Daniel Otieno Omondi, aka General Juma.

Kenei failed to report to work on the same day he was expected at the DCI headquarters and attempts by DCI forensic experts to trace him by phone were futile.

The following day, February 20, he was found dead in his house. 17 days later, and with no single suspect arrested, he will be laid to rest. His killers hope he will rest with the secrets. His widow prays not.

Reporting by Mercy Koskei, Samuel Baya and Mary Wambui.