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A burial dispute that has kept a woman’s body lying in an Eldoret mortuary for over six months took a new twist yesterday when a widow told a court that the late woman was just a girlfriend to her late husband.

Salina Kendagor told Eldoret High Court Presiding Judge Reuben Nyakundi that her late husband, Barnabas Kendagor, was never married to Catherine Jerotich.

“When I got married to him, he never informed me that he had another wife. What he told me was that he sired a son with the Jerotich when he was in Form Three in 1977, and he introduced him to me and I took care of him until he came of age,” she explained.

She said this was why she allowed the now deceased son, identified as Stanley Kiplagat, to be buried at her matrimonial home in Moiben sub-county.

Salina told the judge that she only recognises the late Kiplagat and another child named Viola Chebet as the only two children that her husband sired out of wedlock.

She was testifying in a matter where one of the late Jerotich’s sons, Justus Kosgey (pictured), sued in the High Court to demand that his deceased mother be buried next to where Kiplagat was laid to rest last year.

Salina also disowned Kosgey, saying he was not her late husband’s biological son and had no right to demand that her mother be buried on the property.

She told the court she had six children with her husband and was in the process of including the Kiplagat among the beneficiaries of her late husband’s estate.

Jerotich, who died aged 65, was to be buried on March 27 next to Kplagat, who was buried n October last year. But before the body could be taken from the mortuary in Eldoret, the family received a court order from Salina stopping their burial plans.

But in a rejoinder, the third defendant in the case, John Chesang, the stepfather of the late Kendagor, told the court that Jerotich was married to the late Kendagor. He also said Kiplagat had been buried on the land without his stepmother objecting.