Fresh twist in burial dispute as woman disowns ‘co-wife,’ tells court she was just a girlfriend

A case in which the body of a 65-year-old woman which has been lying at a morgue in an Eldoret hospital for the last six months over a burial dispute took a new twist on Tuesday.

Kendagor, however, was also married to Salina Cheruto, who told the court that Jerotich was just the late soldier's girlfriend, and not wife.

Salina told Eldoret High Court Presiding Judge Reuben Nyakundi that Kendagor was never married to the Jerotich.

Salina told the Judge that she recognizes Jerotich’s son Stanley Kiplagat and another child, Viola Chebet, as the only two children who were sired out of wedlock by her late husband.

She said that that was the only reason why she accepted that Kiplagat (also now deceased) be buried at the matrimonial home of the late KDF officer in Moiben sub-county.

She was testifying in a matter where one of the late Jerotich’s sons, Justus Kosgey, moved to the High Court to demand that her deceased mother be buried next to where his late brother Kiplagat was laid to rest last year.

In her further testimony, Salina disowned Kosgey saying that he was not a biological son to her late husband hence has no right to demand that his mother be laid to rest on the said property.

She told the court that she had six children with her late husband and was in the process of including the late Kiplagat among the beneficiaries of the deceased’s estate.

Jerotich, who died aged 65, was to be buried on March 27 this year at a section of her seven-acre farm in Moiben, which had been reportedly given to her and her two sons by the late Kendagor.

The KDF officer died on October 16, 2005, and was buried at a section of 63 acres of land owned by his second wife Salina.

Jerotich was to be buried next to her first-born son Kiplagat, who was laid to rest in October last year.

But before the body was ferried from the mortuary in Eldoret, the family received a court order from Jerotich’s co-wife Salina stopping the burial plans.

This was after Salina filed a civil case under a certificate of urgency at the Eldoret Law Courts seeking to stop the burial.