Family's agony as missing university student found dead in Karen forest
Nairobi
By
Pkemoi Ng'enoh
| Nov 02, 2025
For about one month, the family of a university student who was reported missing in early September has not rested.
The student, Victor Kiprono Kemboi, a third-year was reported missing on September 10, 2025 after leaving their home in Saika along Kangundo road.
That was the last time his parents saw him until three weeks later when his decomposing body was found at Kenya Forest Conservancy in Karen, Nairobi.
“That day, we left him at home in the morning as usual and left to work thinking that he will prepare to attend classes or driving lessons as he used to do around that time,” his mother Priscah Limo recalled
Adding that, “in the course of the day, we called him to inquire some things at home but he didn't pick but we assumed he was busy until the evening hours when we came back but he was not there,”
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The family said Kemboi's phone was ringing the whole night but he was not picking until toward morning hours when it went off forcing them to report the case of missing person to police.
“The next day we decided to report the matter to police who directed us to Directorate of Criminal Investigations who tracked his mobile number in an attempt to trace the people he had called that day," said the mother
After several weeks of waiting, the mother said she received a call from DCI Karen asking if they had reported a case of missing person and that they were required to go and do a follow up of the case.
"When we arrived at the station we were shown his Identity Card and his books and his wallet then they told us his body was found at, that alone broke out heart as police shared that the bad news," she said
The family was told Kemboi’s body was found in the forest around Karen and had decomposed beyond recognition forcing them to go for DNA test then the postmortem to ascertain the cause of his death.
The mother said Kemboi was the second born in the family and a humble child who had started his business of baking cakes when he was not in class thus wondering what or how he could have ended up in Karen, far away from Saika in Eastlands.
"We were very close and his death has shattered me completely, it is out appeal that anyone who was involved in his death be known, we want the justice for him," the mother said.
Government pathologist Benard Midia who conducted the postmortem of Kiprono's body said his body was decomposed beyond recognition.
"Even though the exercise has been inconclusive, we have taken some samples for further investigations to get to the bottom of this," the expert said.
"In this case, there was extensive decomposition of the body and it's hard to notice any organ, but in such circumstances we know what to do so as to bring value to the investigative process," the pathologist said.