The late Walter Odongo Rayola. Right: The burial permit that his family was issued with at Nairobi Funeral Home in November 2013.
On November 1, 2013, Walter Odongo Rayola and his mother Mary Odongo left their home in Huruma estate for Gikomba Market in Nairobi where she was working as a fishmonger.
This had been a routine for the two for the last two years, helping each other at the sprawling market after Walter failed to secure a job even after completing a Diploma Course in Procurement.
But as fate would have it, that was to be the last day mother and son would combination ever would travel to the sprawling market.
Around 11am, Walter left Gikomba, informing his mother that he was headed to the city centre, although he did not reveal what he business he was going to attend to.
That was the last time the mother spoke to her last born son.
According to Walter's father, Nicholas Rayola, 76, it would later emerge to his son had been shot by police officers.
“I received a call from my daughter that she had seen a post on social media that Walter had been shot by the police somewhere along Mbagathi Way,” says Mr Rayola.
Disturbed by the news, Mr Rayola called his eldest son, George Odongo, who lived in Kisumu then, to help him follow up on the matter.
“He confirmed my worst fears. My last born son was fatally shot and his body had been taken to City Mortuary,” the father narrates.
Nicholas Odongo Rayola has been searching for a death certificate for his son since November 2013.
The following day, Mr Rayola went to the City Mortuary, where he identified his son's body - lifeless, cold and unresponsive to his many questions of what happened.
Chief Government Pathologist Dr Johansen Oduor would later perform a postmortem on Walter, after the family paid a fee of Sh3,100, and the body of the 24-year-old eventually transferred from City Mortuary to Chiromo Mortuary.
He was buried at the family's rural home in Sidindi, Ugunja Constituency, Siaya County on November 16, 2013.
“Before we left with the body from City Mortuary, we were issued with a burial permit,” recalls Mr Rayola.
A public inquiry into the young man's death promised by the police remained just that – a promise.
“I was told by the police officer in charge of investigations in Nairobi region that my son was caught robbing someone’s car. That is all the explanation I got,” the father says.
However, Mr Rayola insists that he never noticed any deviant behaviour from his son.
But if he thought being taken round in circles by the police was bad enough following his son's puzzling death, Mr Rayola was not prepared for what awaited him.
What has followed has been an 11-year search to get a death certificate for his late son.
From all the doors he has been endlessly knocking, the response has been the same - “we don’t have his records.”
“Two weeks after burying my son, I returned to Nairobi. I later began the process of applying for a death certificate. Almost 11 years later, I am yet to get that certificate,” says the retired journalist.
The septuagenarian has made countless visits to the Civil Registrar of Deaths and Births as well as City Mortuary with no success.
“For 11 years, I have been unable to get the certificate. I have been to the Registrar of Deaths several times, the last time being July this year when they sent me back to City Mortuary where I was told there are no records of my son,” Mr Rayola recounts.
Documents seen by Nation.Africa corroborate the payment of Sh3,100 by Mr Rayola on November 2, 2013 when he was issued a receipt (General Receipt No 339849) as the postmortem bill.
The body was assigned an admission number of 2634/013 and the number is the same as that on the burial permit document also issued on the same day.
The late . Right:
The burial permit that his family of the late Walter Odongo Rayola was issued with at Nairobi Funeral Home in November 2013.
The duly stamped permit for burial document bears a P.P 2756/13 and a serial number of 680451 with the permit recorded as issued to Mr Rayola.
Walter left behind an expectant wife who would go on to deliver a girl. Mother and daughter are now suffering from the acts of commission or omission by the City Mortuary, currently known as Nairobi Funeral Home.
“My son left an unborn baby, who my daughter in the US wants to adopt. Unfortunately, we can't process travelling documents for lack of her father's death certificate,” says a distraught Rayola.
When Nation.Africa visited Nairobi Funeral Home on Thursday last week, officers at the facility promised to look into their records to unravel what happened and rectify it.
However, one officer who sought anonymity, admitted that there could have been some acts of omission leading to failure by officers-then to duly register the documents concerning Walter, hence the lack of reflection of the records at the department of civil registration.
“The two officers who worked on the file made some errors but unfortunately they are all dead. We will look into our archives to know what happened. It is either the postmortem report was not filed or the burial permit document, or even both,” said the officer.
