Rebecca Cheptegei loved chickens. She reared them and collected their eggs each morning. Her family would gently joke she loved them too much.
“She was always laughing,” says her mother, Agnes. “You always knew when she was home.”
Cheptegei had a chicken coop wherever she lived. Earlier this year, she built a house in the Kenyan village of Kinyoro, funded by her recent success — she won the World Mountain Running Championships in 2022, and finished second in last year’s Florence Marathon.
That championship feeling for Rebecca Cheptegei 🇺🇬🏆✨
She’s crowned queen of the Classic Up & Down at the #WMTRC in #AmazingThailand 👑
Silver 🥈 for Annet Chemengich Chelangat 🇺🇬, and bronze 🥉 for Allie McLaughlin 🇺🇸
📺 Coverage continues: https://t.co/avnwwjCLMO pic.twitter.com/DEmModzZtU
— wmtrc2021thailand (@wmtrc2021th) November 6, 2022
On the afternoon of September 1, while Cheptegei was at church, her estranged partner Dickson Ndiema Marangach lowered himself inside the coop, with its solid wooden walls. When she returned, she went outside to check on her flock, given the light drizzle.
As Cheptegei approached, Marangach burst out the coop and threw petrol in her eyes. While she stumbled, he used the jerry can to soak the rest of her body —…
