Police in Eldoret have arrested the prime suspect in the murder of LGBTQ activist and model Edwin Kiprotich Kiptoo alias Chiloba.
The suspect has been identified as Jacktone Odhiambo, a Nairobi-based freelance photographer who is a longtime friend of the deceased.
Police are now looking for two suspects believed to have helped load Chiloba's body in a metal box before it was dumped at Halingham near Kipkaren.
Kimulwo said that after investigations, the deceased appeared to have been strangled and one eye gouged out.
Uasin Gishu county DCI boss Peter Kimulwo said the motive of the killing remains unknown.
Kimulwo explained that police had been informed by a chief that a metal box was dropped by the roadside in the Kipkaren area on January 3, 2023
Residents found a dead body of an adult wrapped in a woman’s dress in the metal box
There were no identification documents on the body and it was moved to the MTRH morgue as investigations started.
The late lived within the Kimumu area and police followed up on a certain plot where they interrogated tenants who confirmed he lived in room No 11 near Noble Bliss Plaza. The deceased was living with two others.
Kimulwo said on new year's eve, Chiloba and friends went to the Tamasha club and came back at around 3 am.
When they arrived, neighbours heard commotion and cries which subsided.
The neighbours did not follow up and the deceased was not seen but on January 3, 2023, neighbours saw a vehicle with two people loading a metal box into the vehicle and left.
Neighbours said they also smelled some foul stench from the house.
"We suspect the noise heard earlier by the neighbours was the time the deceased was killed," Kimulwo said.
He said the DCI was tracking the vehicle used to dump the body.
The suspect is being interrogated to give more information on the matter.
The arrested suspects are said to have told the neighbours that a rat had died in the house after the neighbours sought to know why there was stench emanating from the house.
Earlier, the family of Murdered LQBTQ activist Edwin Chiloba had positively identified his body at the Moi Referral Hospital morgue in Eldoret.
His sister Melvin Faith and other relatives were at the morgue where a postmortem is to be carried out on the body.
Melvin also narrated her final moments with Chiloba with whom they met for new year celebrations at Tamasha's place in Eldoret.
Melvin works at Tamasha and says Chiloba arrived at about 10pm with a friend whom she did not know.
"At about 1 am after the new year fireworks, I met him and he bid me farewell saying he would miss me', Melvin said.
He said Chiloba did not look disturbed and was jovial.
"I did not sense any problem and little did I know that it would be the last time I was seeing my brother," Melvin said.
Chiloba was found murdered and his body stashed in a metallic box along the Kipenyo-Kaptinga road, in Kapsaret, Uasin Gishu.
Police said initial reports indicate a numberless vehicle was seen dropping the metal box in the area by a Bodaboda rider who happened to be riding by the area when it happened.
The matter was reported to police officers who were manning a nearby roadblock.
The officers abandoned their post and rushed to the scene.
Upon opening the box, a decomposing body of a man dressed in a woman’s clothes was found inside.
It was later established that the deceased was Eldoret-based fashion designer Chiloba.
Chiloba was a known LGBTQ activist Edwin Kiptoo alias Chiloba.