By Aloise Munene
Police officers in Kisumu are investigating the mysterious death of a 33-year-old man whose body was found on Wednesday in a stationary vehicle outside a petrol station in the Otonglo area of Kisumu.
A security guard manning the station noticed a suspicious vehicle that seemed to have been oddly abandoned at the side of the Kisumu-Kisian road for a long period. According to the witness report recorded by Vincent Odongo, the security guard, the man was lying unconscious on his left side across from the driver’s seat to the front passenger’s seat. He raised alarm upon his discovery.
The vehicle, a white Toyota Vitz registered KCW 646J, showed no signs of forced entry by a second party as the police found it locked when they arrived at the scene.
The man, who was later identified as Habel Oile, was confirmed dead by detectives who broke into the vehicle.
Preliminary investigations reveal that the car was seen parking the previous night, but the guards on duty do not recall seeing anyone alighting or boarding it.
According to the County Police Commissioner Samuel Anampiu, the death is currently being treated as a suicide. The case’s direction was influenced by the investigation’s inability to determine whether other occupants had been in the vehicle and the discovery of a 25mm empty insecticide bottle inside the vehicle’s glove compartment.
The body was taken to Kisumu Referral Hospital’s mortuary for post-mortem analysis.