Police in Keiyo South Sub County will on Thursday exhume a body believed to be that of former Kerio Valley Development Authority (KVDA) boss Silvanos Tubei, who went missing 12 years ago.
On Wednesday, police officers in Keiyo South Sub-County, Elgeyo Marakwet obtained a court order from the Iten magistrate's court to exhume Tubei's remains from his Chepkurmum farm where they were found over the weekend.
"We have had reports of a missing person in the area since 2012. However, we cannot say that the remains belong to the late Tubei, but investigations will enable us to know whether he is the one or not," Mr Abdullahi Dahir, the Keiyo South Sub-County Police boss, told the Nation .
DCI officers and members of the public at the home of former KVDA Managing Director, Sylvanus Tubei, on January 04, 2024.
Photo credit: Jared Nyataya | Nation Media Group
When the Nation team visited the house where the remains were found and are expected to be exhumed today, several locals were milling around the compound.
However, reporters were denied access by a family member who said they were under strict orders that no one should enter the compound.
"We have been warned by police officers that no one should be allowed to enter this compound until they come tomorrow," said the family member, who refused to reveal his identity.
The Nation has established that officers attached to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) homicide squad will then take the remains for a DNA test to determine if it was indeed Mr Tubei.
If the DNA results show that the remains are those of the former KVDA chief, it will revive a case that was dismissed by the courts for lack of evidence and which saw his estranged wife and another suspect set free.
When he was reported missing 12 years ago, family sources told the media and police that he disappeared from his home at around 10 am on the morning of September 26 and has never been seen again.
Police at the scene where a body believed to be that of former KVDA Managing Director, Sylvanus Tubei, on January 04, 2024.
Photo credit: Jared Nyataya | Nation Media Group
Already, a family member who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Nation that there were already murmurs among them that the clothes he was wearing the morning he disappeared matched those recovered from the shallow grave.
"The pieces of clothing found next to the skeleton match what he was wearing when he went missing," the family member said.
Detectives are now tasked with figuring out how a man who was reported missing, even by family members, ended up buried in his farm and wrapped in a blanket.
Had it not been for children who were sent out to collect firewood, the body might not have been discovered.
They went ahead, pulled the buried blanket, and were struck by an odour. They then saw a human skull and alerted a gardener on the property.
A family member said that two of Mr Tubei's children with his deceased first wife had since moved abroad.
The second wife and her child disappeared, never to be heard from again after she was acquitted by the courts.
