Edwin Kiptoo, aka Chiloba, left, with his boyfriend Jacktone Odhiambo
The boyfriend of Kenyan LGBTQ+ activist and model Edwin Kiptoo, also known as Chiloba, was convicted on Wednesday for his gruesome murder.
Chiloba’s decomposing body was found stuffed in a metal trunk by the side of a highway the day after he was reported missing in January 2023.
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The judge in the case, presiding over the High Court in Eldoret in western Kenya, found sufficient evidence to convict Jacktone Odhiambo, a freelance photographer living with Chiloba at the time, in the killing. Odhiambo denied the charges.
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The court did not issue a finding about the motive for Chiloba’s murder, who was 25 at the time of his death.
At the trial, 23 witnesses testified, including a forensic pathologist who detailed that Chiloba’s mouth had been stuffed with socks and his face wrapped in denim from a pair of jeans. A post-mortem indicated the cause of death was suffocation.
The killing was said to take place in the couple’s apartment sometime between December 31, 2022 and January 3, 2023. Neighbors reported hearing screams coming from the apartment on New Year’s Day that later subsided.
Defensive wounds on Chiloba’s hands indicated he had struggled to defend himself, and forensic evidence showed Odhiambo had raped Chiloba prior to his murder.
In his verdict, the judge detailed evidence that Odhiambo had left Chiloba’s decomposing body in their apartment and went on a spending spree using the dead man’s phone. Records from a money transfer app showed Odhiambo went to several nightclubs in Eldoret and paid for massage and sex services.
Odhiambo also bought the metal trunk that Chiloba’s body was discovered in. A motorcycle taxi driver reported seeing the trunk dumped by the side of a highway by a car with no license plates. The car was later linked to Odhiambo.
“He was a young man whom you strangled until he lost his life at the peak of his life. You were close friends, and you should have protected his life,” the judge told Odhiambo as he rendered his verdict.
“It is justice that took a long time to get there,” Ivy Werimba, communications and advocacy officer at galck+, a coalition of 16 LGBTIQ organizations in Kenya said of the verdict.
“We are also Kenyan citizens living our own lives and going through things we’d like our institutions to help us with,” she told news site DW. “This ruling is an indication of progress, showing that queer people are being seen by various institutions, especially the judiciary.”
Chiloba was earning a degree in Apparel Fashion and Design at the University of Eldoret. Weeks before he died, he posted to Instagram that he was “going to fight for all marginalized people,” citing himself as an example.
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