Misled by a Facebook friend

He sold his trees and a cow, fetched Sh40,000 and embarked on a journey to Nairobi to meet a blind date he met on Facebook. Two years later, he has not returned home.

Dickson Kipkoech Mutai, locally known as Chepkumiat, then 18, left his parents’ home in Kapcheptoror village in Kericho County unnoticed and without informing anyone of his destination, leaving his parents in agony.

Johana and Sarah Ng’eny say their son left home on November 28, 2012 for Nairobi. It was the first time he had been outside Kericho.

“We arrived home from our normal activities in the fields but he wasn’t there. We thought he was at the trading centre but he didn’t come back. Days went by. After two weeks we asked his friends and our relatives if they had seen him but got no leads,” says Sarah.

Eventually, some of his friends told them that he had gone to meet a woman he had met on Facebook.

His mother says that Mutai, who is the fourth-born in a family of ten dropped out of school at Standard Seven at the nearby Kapcheptoror Primary School and had become a small-scale farmer. With the profits, he had bought a cow.

Johana says he noticed that his son was communicating with someone on phone for several hours at a time, but that he does not know who that person was.

“I reported the disappearance of my son at Ainomoi police station and was referred to the Kericho Criminal Investigation Department (CID). When I told them my boy is 18, the officers dismissed me saying he was old enough to take care of himself. I left dejected after recording a statement.”

Mutai, who was a Facebook enthusiast, left at dusk on the day he disappeared and has been ‘mteja’ ever since.

Lenny Lang’at, a neighbour who travelled with Mutai to Nairobi on that day, says that they only spoke briefly when they disembarked in Nairobi.

“On November 27, 2012, l was going to register with a political party as I was vying for a Member of Country Assembly seat. I found him seated in the front and asked him where he was going. He told me he was headed to Nairobi like me,” narrates Lang’at.

He says they did not talk much until they disembarked at the bus station near Railways in Nairobi. Mutai told him that he was waiting for somebody.
Lang’at explains: “When he told me that he was waiting for somebody, I thought he was safe. I went my way. At around 4pm that day, he called me in a jovial mood and told me that he was still at the bus station and wanted me to go and greet his ‘friend’.” 

Shed tears

Lang’at did not go immediately and when he went later, he did not find him. He called him, but his phone was off.

His last Facebook update - under the name Alson Dickson - a week before he disappeared read: “Hong Kong pap!”

Did he leave the country?

His friends on Facebook have since been posting on his wall asking for his whereabouts but there is no response.

One of the posts from Leonard Chepkwony on January 24, 2013 read: “Hey! Dickson where are you? You made your parents and friends to shed tears asking for you, then your phone went off. Tell us where you are man, are you still alive?”.

Mutai’s parents are calling on anyone who may know of their beloved son’s whereabouts to inform them through the authorities.

“If at all he is alive wherever he is, let him call even his friends if he doesn’t want to talk to us. We need to hear from him so that we can have peace of mind,” appeals Mutai’s father.