Fugitive police officer Caroline Kangogo.
| File | CourtesyUasin Gishu
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No cremation for Caroline Kangogo says family
The family of disgraced police officer Caroline Jemutai Kangogo will not honour her alleged burial wishes, spelt out in what police say is her suicide note. Instead, Kangogo will be laid to rest in a Christian ceremony sometime next week, said Mr Robert Kipkorir, the family spokesperson and uncle to the late police officer.
In an unsent text message distributed by police officers on Friday, Kangogo was alleged to have instructed her family to cremate her remains. The family says this will not happen.
The text messages contained a number of unsubstantiated claims, including marital infidelity, sexual harassment, and, paradoxically as she wanted to be cremated, a suggestion that she be buried in a wedding gown.
A police vehicle carries the body of Caroline Kangogo picked from her parent’s bathroom in Nyawa village, Iten, Elgeyo Marakwet County, after she allegedly shot herself dead yesterday.
“To my people, it’s my wedding day — dress me in a white gown that my husband could not afford. To my parents, I am requesting that my body be cremated to end your suffering. Remember to take good care of my children. For the things in Kasarani, hire movers for safe delivery here,” she is said to have suggested.
But the family says it will accord its fallen daughter a “normal” send-off. It was also non-committal yesterday on whether the late Kangogo, who was married to Commissioner of Police Richard Kipkirui Ng’eno, had reported any marital problems.
National Police Service
On whether the National Police Service would be involved in the send-off ceremonies — as is the tradition when a serving police officer dies — Elgeyo Marakwet Police Commander Patrick Lumumba said that was an administrative matter and he was yet to receive any communication from Nairobi.
Cpl Kangogo, who was said to be on the run for the last 10 days, is said to have sneaked into her rural home in the wee hours of Friday and hid inside a bathroom 40 metres from the main house, where, it is again claimed by police officers, she shot herself in the head. No one in the compound heard the gunshot.
Mr Kipkorir, family spokesman, said the death was puzzling.
“No one knows at what time Kangogo entered the homestead for the alleged suicide,” he said. “Her mother only discovered the body in the morning when she went to wash the bathroom.”
Mourners outside a bathroom where Corporal Caroline Kangogo’s body was found at her parent’s home in Marakwet County, yesterday.
He also said the family was yet to be shown the suicide note, and that the family hoped detectives would establish why Kangogo would kill the two men she is said to have shot on separate occasions before going underground; as well as any other uncertainties in her last days before her body was discovered.
“We had appealed to her to surrender to any police station but we are disturbed that she instead decided to take away her life,” said the family spokesperson.
“We are clueless on all that has happened and we leave the matter to the police to carry out their investigations.”
Mr Lumumba had earlier confirmed that security personnel had been deployed around the homestead to lay in wait for the police officer, but she somehow sneaked in undetected.
