Dickson Ndiema Marangach, the former boyfriend of Ugandan Olympic marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei, has died from burns sustained after setting Cheptegei on fire during a fatal attack on September 1, 2024.
Marangach ambushed the 33-year-old athlete as she returned to her home in Trans Nzoia County, Kenya, after church. He doused her with petrol before igniting the flames, which also engulfed him when some of the fuel splashed onto his own body.
Cheptegei was rushed to Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret with burns covering over 80% of her body. She died four days later on September 5, 2024. Marangach, who suffered burns on more than 40% of his body, was admitted to the same hospital. Despite life-saving efforts, he succumbed to respiratory failure and sepsis on Monday evening, September 9, 2024, at 6:30 p.m. local time.
Philip Kirwa, CEO of Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, confirmed Marangach’s death, saying, “He developed respiratory failure as a result of the severe airway burns and sepsis that led to his eventual death.”
Marangach had been facing charges of murder, but with his death, the case has been dropped, and authorities plan to open an inquest into the deaths of both Marangach and Cheptegei. The attack, reportedly sparked by a land dispute between the two, shocked the global athletics community.
Cheptegei, an Olympian who competed in the 2023 Paris Olympics and finished 44th in the marathon, was a celebrated athlete in Uganda. She also won gold at the World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2022.
Her death marks the third time in three years that an elite female athlete has been killed in Kenya, following the murders of Agnes Tirop in 2021 and Damaris Mutua in 2022. Both women were also killed by current or former romantic partners. The rise in violence against women, particularly athletes, has drawn international concern.
“I don’t wish bad things on anyone, but of course I would have loved for him to face the law as an example for others so that these attacks on women can stop,” said Beatrice Ayikoru, Secretary-General of the Uganda Olympic Committee, in a statement to Reuters.
Cheptegei is set to be buried on Saturday, September 14, 2024, at her ancestral home in Bukwo, Uganda.
