Rebecca Cheptegei, the Ugandan national record holder in the marathon, suffered through burns covering more than 80 percent of her body for days after her ex-boyfriend doused her in petrol and set her on fire in front of their children. On Sept. 5, 2024 – days after the violent attack – she died in Eldoret, Kenya, from multiple organ failure.
Despite being a brutal murder, multiple large news websites including CBS news, BBC news and AlJazeera English used words like “Died” or “Killed” in their headlines, sparking a wave of backlash in their respective comment sections and other reports. While the articles themselves went into more detail, many found it concerning how these headlines dodged the word “murdered,” at best using “killed,” which does not imply planned and purposeful intent or acknowledge that another person caused her death. The difference may seem minor, but critics say that is the point; a headline that states “person killed in car accident” has a non-intentional, accidental connotation. Using the same verb for a murder lessens the impact.
Tualatin senior Sydney Smith shared her thoughts as a runner herself.
“My first reaction was just shock and disbelief,” she said. “Here is this amazing woman, who has been influential in the running community, and now she is this victim of an insane act of violence… Her daughters were there when it happened.”
Smith also pointed out Cheptegei’s career as an extremely successful runner may now be overshadowed.
“It is really sad, especially because this is how she is going to be remembered now,” Smith said. “Not [everyone] will forget how amazing she was for the running community, but people’s first thought is going to be how she died in this way.”
Smith commented on violence against women in the media and online.
“People downplay violence against women a lot… domestic violence happens very frequently, but I have heard of stories where people ignore it because women are too scared to get out or say anything,” Smith said. “I think that we have started potentially going backwards in society… situations end up being ‘he said, she said,’ which is a really dangerous space because sometimes people on either side could be really good liars.”
Smith additionally highlighted how the volume of the cases leads to a dulling effect.
“Part of the reason it isn’t always talked about is because it has been happening so frequently for all time that it is just almost normal, which is worse than going simply unnoticed,” she said.
This is not a one-off event; Cheptegei is the third female athlete to be murdered in the past three years in Kenya, all by former romantic partners, as part of a much larger trend. According to UN Women, Africa recorded the highest number of female-intimate-partner and family-related killings out of any continent, with an estimated 20,000 victims.
