News about the state in which Edwin Kiptoo alias Chiloba was found dead has been a subject of discussions for the last couples of hours now.
The decomposing body of Chiloba, an LGBTQ+ activist and fashion designer was discovered stashed in a metal box that locals say was dropped along the Kipkenyo-Kaptinga road in Eldoret by a car that had no number plate.
But even as police officers piece together evidence they hope will help unravel the misery behind his death, Chiloba’s family has come out to give an account of how they knew him.
Gaudencia Chelimo Tanui, the first cousin to the deceased describes him as a hard working individual who had a bright future.
He was a fourth year student at the University of Eldoret.
“I heard about his death on social media. The last time we spoke to him was when he was wishing us Christmas and had promised to come on New Yead day because he had other commitments,” Chelimo told journalists at the Moi Teaching and Refferal Hospital mortuary where the body is being preserved.
“He was a good boy. His death has shocked us,” she adds.
Never wronged anyone
But while Chiloba has been described as an LQBTQ+ activist, his younger sister Gladys Kiptoo says he had never personally confessed to her about the issue.
To her, he was a good boy who never wronged anyone.
“We had a lot of hopes in him. He promised that soon he would graduate and support us,” said Gladys.
At the University of Eldoret, the late Chiloba was pursuing degree in fashion designing. Initially he had been enrolled for an Education course but later changed to fashion design.
With the police pursuing the matter, the family hopes the culprits will be arrested to face the full force of the law.
Already one prime suspect Jackton Odhiambo is in police custody. Odhiambo, 24, has been described by the police as a Nairobi-based freelance photographer who was a close friend to Edwin Kiptoo Chiloba.
It is believed that together with two other people that police are hunting, the suspect loaded to a vehicle a metal box that had the LQBTQ’s decomposing body.
