Meshack Yebei's wife: I need him back

For Lilian Yebei, life has been a mixed bag of fortunes; the joy that comes with safe delivery of her third born son and the sadness of the mysterious disappearance of her husband.

Meshack Yebei wedded Lilian on December 30, 2006 and disappeared on December 28, last year when he and his wife took their ailing son to a nearby health centre, in Eldoret.

However, a DNA test conducted on a body initially believed to be his, showed that the body belonged to matatu tout, Yusuf Hussein.

After the burial of Hussein, who hailed from Chepsonoi in Nandi County, Lilian’s thought still harbours doubt that her husband’s body could be lying in that home whose family they only came to know when the mystery surrounding Yebei’s disappearance got complicated.

“If he is alive, I would like to tell him to come home. We now have a 10-day-old baby and I miss him so much,”said Lilian.

She continues: “Life has been tough since his disappearance. It has created a gap in our family that cannot be filled.”

The mother of three told The Standard on Sunday of the memories she still holds of her loving husband, and her current struggles.

“We left together to the nearby health centre after our eldest son got sick. The boy kept on vomiting and we took him to the hospital. Upon reaching the facility, the vomiting continued, and he left to go buy water for the boy, unfortunately, he never returned,” she narrates.

She said upon her husband's mysterious disappearance, attempts to locate him  were futile, prompting them to report the matter to Turbo Police Station.

“My mother-in-law called to find out why we had overstayed. I could not contact my husband because he had left his phone with me,” she said.

The 30-year-old businesswoman started getting worried as dusk approached, when Yebei was nowhere to be seen.

“It was very unusual of him to leave without saying where he had gone. We begun worrying that same evening and since then we still are worried, anxious and perturbed about my husband's whereabouts,” said Lilian.

Lilian still believes that the SMS that was sent through a Ugandan mobile service provider did not come from her husband.

She insists that Yebei would not at any time send his mother, who cannot read from her cell phone, a text. He always called her.

“When my mother-in-law received the text purported to have been sent by my husband, I knew it was all lies. He has never sent any of us SMS. I expected him to call me and relay the message to us on his whereabouts,” she said.

According to Lilian, her family thought the mystery of her husband’s disappearance had been unraveled with the discovery of an unidentified body that was lying at Kapsabet Referral Hospital Mortuary, and which about 20 members of the family and friends identified and agreed was Yebei’s.

“I also saw and confirmed some marks. We were all settled emotionally, knowing that he would be laid to rest because of the marks and a specific scar on his thigh,” she asserted.

As the family started to plan on the funeral of their kin, according Lilian, they were thrown off balance when detectives told them the biometric results from National registration bureau gave a 60 per cent match to Yusuf.

The CID detectives from the Serious Crimes Unit led by John Kariuki, gave the information at a press conference in Eldoret.

The body in question was on Friday last week buried at a Muslim cemetery after the DNA samples drawn from the two families proved a 99.9 per cent match to that of Yusuf.

The move came even after Yebei’s family had obtained a court injunction preventing anyone from collecting the body from Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital mortuary.

Lilian is yet to come to terms with the fact that the body presumed to be that of the father of her children was indeed that of Yusuf. He, too, was said to have disappeared on of December 25, last year.

“Based on the scars I saw, I believe the body which was buried by Yusuf’s family was Yebei’s, but again, at times I tend to have wild thoughts that he is still alive somewhere,” she added.

Questions have arisen as to whether Yebei would have staged his disappearance following the manner in which he left his mobile phone with his wife.

But his wife is quick to deny, saying her husband had in several occasions previously left his phone with her.

 “It was not his first time, there are times when we would travel and upon alighting, he would always tell me to pick up the phones from the car,” she said.

She reiterated that her husband had reported that his life was in danger in 2013 at Eldoret Police Station before his disappearance.

Lilian now wants the Government to help her locate her husband and bring him home.

She termed her husband as a loving and caring man, who always put family interests first.

She says the family is anxiously waiting for the DNA results of the body presumed to be that of Yebei’s after they sent the samples two weeks ago to South Africa.

“Once we get the results of the DNA, we will have a conclusive answer. And if it matches that of Meshack, we will insist on the exhumation of the body that was buried recently. But if he is alive, we ask him to come home soon,” said Lilian.