Rebecca Gombe Mwachongo

Prof. Fredrick Ogolla a lecturer at Strathmore University was handpicked by bad luck in 2017 when his wife Rebecca Gombe Mwachongo died mysteriously, then the police came to arrest him, separating him from their six-weeks-old baby.

The two had stayed for three years without a child and their joy of being in marriage was at climax in 2017 with the birth of their son Matisse.

The couple had planned to celebrate the new year in style at ABC in Westlands. Little did they know that fate had its own plans.

On December 31st 2017, they had also made arrangements to celebrate the birth of their son. “Our spiritual director Fr Andrew Massawe of the Congregation of Holy Cross, who was at that time in Uganda, had fallen ill and needed some extra doses of some medication because the hospital didn’t have. He requested me to send him the medication by bus to Kampala.” said Fredrick in an interview with the Saturday Nation.

The lecturer said he went to pick the medication at Nairobi Hospital and returned to his house. While preparing to go and drop the parcel, his wife noticed it and jokingly said, “Sweetheart, you’re going nowhere.” The husband asked her,”How will you stop me?”

He said his wife told him,”Let me show you.” as she romantically pushed him into bed.

During this playful moment, his wife exclaimed “Aha” and fell on the edge of the bed. He thought she was still playing and he escaped the bedroom temptation.

After dropping the parcel, his house help told him that his wife was on the floor struggling to get up.

Anxious, he tried beating traffic to arrive home. He arrived and got the help of neighbors in putting her in the car to rush her to the hospital.

Fredrick said that he suspected she had postnatal issues since she had just given birth. However, emergency checks revealed that she was fine and her oxygen was at 96 percent.

At 9 pm,the nurses told him the wife would not breastfeed soon so he should start planning for other options.

He then rushed home to feed the baby and put him to sleep. At around 1:30 when the fireworks to welcome nee year lit the sky, he was called by the doctor. The lecturer in a panic mode asked friends and family to pray for Becky, his wife.

Upon reaching the hospital, he found his wife had a heart failure and the doctors were resuscitating her. According to information he was given by the doctors, his wife had fluids in the lungs and blood clots in the heart and brain which caused stroke on the left side of her body.

She was moved to the ICU and after suffering a third heart failure, she didn’t make it on the eve of 2018. The next day at 6:45 am, he found six officers on his door. They told him to accompany them to report a statement at the police station.

He was promised he would return soon, but on reaching Muthangari Police Station, he was told he won’t be allowed to go without the permission of the DCI. He was then detained for 21 days being moved to more than 10 stations.

His phone and the wife’s were confiscated for forensic investigation. By the end of the 21 days in cells, government pathologists Johansen Oduor and Prof. Emily Rugena had done three post-mortems, their reports claimed that the wife died due to a natural cause, thus de-linking Ogolla from his wife’s death.

However, there were lies surrounding the death of his wife that a woman called and it led to a fight. Ogolla was released with Ksh 100,000 bond with detectives ordered to re-arrest him in case new evidence comes up after three months, if it failed, the case would be closed.