Head injuries, medical neglect: Chilling postmortem results revealed for 8 Kericho victims
Five of the bodies exhumed from the Makaburini cemetery in Kericho town had head injuries resulting from being hit with blunt objects.
A total of 33 bodies—eight male adults and 25 children—were exhumed on Tuesday, along with six body parts buried in a mass grave at the cemetery.
Detectives are now moving to stage two of the investigations—to establish the identity of the victims—with no one having come forward so far to claim them.
Dr Richard Njoroge, the government’s lead pathologist in the case, told journalists at the Kericho County Referral Hospital mortuary that victims died of choking, pneumonia, severe infections, blood clots, and head injuries.
“One died of choking, another from hypertension and heart disease, one from severe pneumonia infections, severe infections as a result of compound fractures on both legs, and severe infections of the abdomen,” Dr Njoroge said.
Government pathologist Dr Richard Njoroge addresses the media after exhumation of 32 bodies from Makaburini cemetery in Kericho on March 24, 2026.
Dr Njoroge stated, “Another one had a clot in the lungs preventing blood circulation, and two others died from head injuries resulting from being hit with blunt objects, leading to multiple fractures of the skull.”
“The body parts (hands and legs) were all cases of surgical amputations due to chronic illness and are therefore specimens (not bodies),” Dr Njoroge, who was flanked by the Director of Homicide at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), Martin Nyuguto, said.
Extrajudicial killings and harvesting of body parts are some of the issues investigators have been asked to look into as they widen the probe into the case, which in the interim straddles Kericho and Nyamira counties.
“Four of the bodies with head injuries were of children, while one was of an adult,” Dr Njoroge said, raising questions on the criminality of those involved in the deaths of the victims, whose bodies have not been identified.
The findings raise questions about murder and extrajudicial killings in a matter that has attracted a lot of public interest, particularly regarding how the Nyamira County government disposed of the bodies without following laid-down procedures and the secrecy surrounding it.
While documents, including a public notice on plans to dispose of unclaimed bodies and a court order—whose authenticity the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has questioned—indicated the bodies were 13, a police report put them at 14. However, upon exhumation, it turned out they were 33, along with six body parts.
It took two days for pathologists to carry out autopsies on the bodies and body parts before releasing the findings, which raise more questions than answers on the deaths and secret burial of the victims.
The victims with head trauma, according to the pathologists who released their findings on Friday, were four children and one adult.
Police officers at Makaburini cemetery in Kericho that has been thrust into the national headlines after 14 bodies were buried in a mass grave, in this photo taken on March 24, 2026.
Nine of the bodies were severely decomposed, while others were relatively fresh, according to the pathologists.
Of the 25 children, pathologists revealed that 10 of the bodies were female, eight male, and seven unknown (due to decomposition).
The fact that the bodies were stuffed into gunny bags before being transported from Nyamira to Kericho for burial on March 20, 2026, raises another layer of questions on the handling of bodies.
“Bodies must be handled in a dignified manner and protected by the government, which should uphold the law on deaths and the process of disposing of bodies, which is clearly stated under the Births and Deaths Act,” Mr Bernard Kipkoech Ngetich, a Nakuru-based advocate, said.
Mr Ngetich said, “The DCI should look into cases of extrajudicial killings, human trafficking, and harvesting of body parts. There seems to be more to the matter than meets the eye.”
The Births and Death Registration Act (Cap. 149) states that it is compulsory to register the death of persons irrespective of their race, class, tribe, or group, and irrespective of their habitation.
“Every person notifying a death shall give the prescribed particulars, which shall be entered forthwith by the registrar in the register of certificates of cause of death,” it states.
It further states, “In the case of the death occurring in Kenya of any person who has been attended during his last illness by a medical practitioner, that practitioner shall sign a certificate stating, to the best of his knowledge and belief, the cause of death.”
“No person shall bury, cremate or otherwise dispose of the body of any deceased person, the registration of whose death is compulsory, without a burial permit,” it states.
A Kericho court on Monday issued orders to the Directorate of Homicide at the DCI to exhume the bodies for forensic investigations.
The Makaburini cemetery in Kericho, in this photo taken on March 24, 2026, overlooking Nyagacho estate (in the horizon), where 14 bodies were buried in a mass grave without legal documentation.
The Directorate of Public Prosecutions, through the public prosecutor, told the court that investigators from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) required more time to complete the ongoing investigations.
“The purpose is to conduct postmortems and extract samples for DNA and toxicology to ascertain the cause of death and for forensic identification of the deceased,” the court ordered.
“The exhumed bodies be examined and extraction of specimens for DNA and toxicology samples be done at the Kericho County Referral Hospital mortuary or any other place as will be advised by the government pathologist,” the court directed.
David Araka Makori, the Nyamira Public Health Officer, and Mr Richard Towett, the caretaker of the cemetery owned by the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), have been detained in police custody for 30 days following court orders sought by the DCI.
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