Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) have launched a manhunt for two brothers accused of hacking to death a university lecturer in Mbita on Tuesday over a land dispute.
The suspects went into hiding after killing Prof Tom Odhiambo, a don at the Technical University of Kenya (TUK), by hacking his head with a machete in Kakrigu Village, Rusinga East Location in Homa Bay County.
Homa Bay County Police Commander Lawrence Koilem said DCI officers are tracking down the two men who went into hiding after committing the crime.
“Detectives are hunting the two. We will get them. They will not hide for long,” he said.
Prof Odhiambo was in the process of solving a land dispute between himself and the family of the men who attacked him.
According to Mbita Deputy County Commissioner Peter Mutiso, the lecturer, who had a title deed to the land in question, died on the spot.
“He was with his father who was also attacked. Fortunately, the father survived the assault and was rushed to hospital for medical care,” he said.
Prof Odhiambo had travelled home when he got information that part of his land had allegedly been encroached by a neighbour.
Mr Mutiso said the Mathematics lecturer had engaged a surveyor to check on the boundary between his land and the one next to it. He had also invited the chief of the location to check how the exercise was to be done.
“Both the chief and the surveyor had not arrived at the said land when the attack took place. The professor and his father had gone ahead of them,” the administrator said.
The exercise of checking the boundary was expected to be peaceful, but it turned violent.
According to residents, the family of the suspect believed the case would not favour them, especially if a surveyor was involved.
Before the chief and the surveyor arrived at the scene, Prof Odhiambo is said to have met two men, including the main suspect, waiting for him.
The man ended up hitting the lecturer on the head, killing him on the spot.
He also attacked the don's father, who was rushed to Mbita sub-County Hospital. Doctors said he is in a stable condition.
At the TUK, Prof Odhiambo taught in the School of Mathematics and Statistics.
In 2005, he moved to the United Kingdom to pursue a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in inverse and ill-posed problems at the University of Leeds, where he graduated in 2008, and returned to the country to continue his career at CUEA.
Later in 2012, he joined the TUK as a senior lecturer and chairperson of the Department of Statistics.
At the time of his death, Prof Odhiambo was an associate professor and director of the School of Mathematics and Statistics.
