In February 1990, then chief government pathologist Dr Jason Kaviti told the world that Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Robert Ouko had shot himself in the head, somehow managed to neatly lay the pistol he used beside himself on the ground, then lit a fire and burned himself into a pound of charcoal at Got Alila, just outside his Koru home in Kisumu County.
Last week, the Daily Nation wrote that a 44-year-old computer teacher who lived as a recluse in a rented house in Tetu, Nyeri, committed suicidal, then nailed himself inside a coffin.
Titled, “Body of missing Nyeri teacher found nailed inside a coffin in his house,” the January 13 story was confusing.
The intro said: “ Residents of a village in Nyeri County witnessed a horrific scene on Thursday when they found the body of a teacher who had been missing for three weeks nailed in a coffin inside his rental house.”
The man had committed suicide, the story by Mercy Mwende said. An assortment of paraphernalia, including poison, a harmer and a spotlight, were found at the scene.
But did the man nail himself before or after drinking poison? How did he put the lid shut over the boat-like coffin in which he was found dead?
To the reporter’s credit, they story wondered, “questions remain on how [it] could have happened given that the body was nailed inside the ‘coffin’ and the door locked from outside.”
However, the same reporter wrote a slightly different account of events the next day.
Titled, “Strange case of teacher ‘who nailed himself in coffin, committed suicide’”, the follow-up story on January 14 started out with the same theory that the “body was found nailed inside a coffin.”
However, in paragraph five the story said the deceased “seems to have accessed the coffin through a stool, lifted the coffin lid and covered himself inside before nailing the lid using a hammer that was found next to his body.”
Lo! Did a dead man nail himself inside a coffin or did he lie down in the coffin lid then nailed it shut?
Clarity, anyone?
Anyway, how did other media report this bizarre story?
Citizen Digital wrote that the body was found “nailed to a coffin” inside the teacher’s home.
Capital News wrote: “ is believed to have placed himself inside a coffin he reportedly made after which he ingested an identified poison.”
How did they establish that sequence of events? It’s not said.
K24 said, “Police believe that the teacher committed suicide by placing himself inside the coffin before ingesting an unknown kind of poison.”
At least they attributed the sequence of events to police sources.
