Man accused of killing a Ugandan Olympian by setting her on fire, dies of burn wounds

A man who allegedly poured gasoline on Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei and set her on fire, killing her, has also died of burns, according to the hospital where the two had been treated.

Dickson Ndiema Marangach died at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya, where distance runner Cheptegei died days ago. Cheptegei -- who competed in the Paris Olympics just weeks ago -- had been based in Kenya, where many elite runners train.

“The two are reported to have quarrelled earlier over a piece of land where Cheptegei had built her house in Kenya’s Rift Valley,” Nairobi journalist Emmanuel Igunza reported for NPR’s Newscast. “The athlete’s family said it had previously reported Marangach to authorities over harassment of their daughter, but no action was taken.”

The attack on Cheptegei, 33, took place in her home in western Kenya last Sunday; her death was announced on Thursday. She reportedly suffered burns on 75%-80% of her body, with Marangach suffering burns on 30%.

Honors and condolences have been pouring in for Cheptegei, including a moment of appreciation for her on Sunday, during the Paralympic Games in Paris. The mother of two had served in Uganda Peoples' Defence Forces -- and her family tells Kenya’s The Star newspaper that Cheptegei will be buried with full military honors on Saturday.

Her fellow athletes say that Cheptegei’s tragic death highlights an unsettling trend of violence against female runners in particular and women in Kenya overall.

“It is sad because we are reminded of what happened to Agnes Tirop,” said Viola Cheptoo, a Kenyan runner who chairs Tirop’s Angels, an advocacy and support group working against gender-based violence. The organization is named for Tirop, Kenyan athlete who had been a rising star before she was stabbed to death shortly after returning home from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

“I feel like the same thing is happening over and over again,” Cheptoo said.

Femicide in Kenya is “a menace, it's a pandemic,” she added.

Tirop died in Iten, a small community in the Rift Valley's high altitude that has an outsized status in the running world. It has also developed a reputation as a place where men seek to take advantage of female athletes whose successes in track and field might bring a payday.

As the advocacy group Usikimye notes, at least three other female runners have been killed in Kenya -- their deaths blamed on husbands or boyfriends -- in recent years. The same week Tirop died in 2021, runner Edith Muthoni was murdered in a house northeast of Nairobi. One year later, Damaris Mutua was strangled in Iten. Now Cheptegei, who died in her home in Trans Nzoia county near Iten, is added to that toll.

“All these athletes have risen to the top of their careers and have been cut down” by men, Usikimye said. “The centre of their rows have been finances.”

The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics says more than a third of women in Kenya say they have experienced physical violence after age 15 -- and the numbers are even worse if a woman is in a relationship. In its 2022 Demographic and Health Survey, the agency reported that “37% of women who are currently married or living together have ever experienced physical violence.”

Among women who experienced physical or sexual violence in that government report, the same percentage -- 42% -- said they had sought help as those who said they never told anyone and never sought help to stop the violence.

As she spoke about the need to protect women and athletes, Cheptoo noted an infamous case from earlier this year, when a man named Collins Jumaisi Khalusha allegedly confessed to killing 42 women over the course of roughly two years. Three weeks ago, Khalusha escaped from a Kenyan police station where he was being held in custody. His and other prisoners’ escape was found to be an inside job.