When the Winkelpecks left their home in Waterloo, Iowa, little did they know what lay ahead of their East African holiday. It was meant to be ordinary in the way family trips are ordinary — suitcases, excitement, the soft chaos of children on holiday, and the promise of Kenya in December: warmth, cousins, food with friends and family, and the comfort of being where your story began.
It was meant to be a holiday visit.
Relatives say the family travelled from the United States to Kenya in December 2025, a trip Wangui Ndirangu often made — not only to spend time with her children, but to support a children’s home in Bungoma, a town about 425 km northwest of Nairobi, a cause she had been committed to for years.
She came to Kenya to pour into other children’s lives. She would leave Kenya with none of her own.
A mother’s seat, a stepfather’s seat, and three children behind them
On Sunday, January 4, 2026, the family made one more trip — the kind that should not even be remembered because it should have ended safely.
Wangui and her husband, Christopher Winkelpeck, hired a public service vehicle (PSV) to travel from Bungoma toward Nairobi, ahead of their scheduled return to the United States on January 7.
Relatives later described how they were seated: Wangui and Christopher directly behind the driver, the three children at the rear. It is one of those details that breaks you when you think about it long enough.
Because it means a mother was sitting just a few feet away from her children — close enough to turn around and smile, close enough to ask if they were okay, close enough to believe she could protect them — and yet still powerless against what came next.
The Nakuru Highway … again.
The accident happened close to midnight near Gilgil, on the Nairobi–Nakuru highway corridor — a major artery that has also become one of Kenya’s most dreaded routes, especially with heavy commercial trucks and long-distance night driving. They had covered about half of the return trip to Nairobi.
More details that emerged in reporting and family accounts describe a terrifying sequence:
A trailer overtaking another vehicle veered into their lane, nearly causing a head-on collision. In an attempt to avoid impact, the PSV driver swerved off the road — but the trailer struck the middle section of the vehicle, causing it to roll.
And in that violent moment, their family split into “before” and “after.” Emmanuel DeLeon, who was to turn 14 in March, died instantly at the scene. His siblings suffered severe injuries.
Kairo Winkelpeck, who was to turn 7 in May, sustained severe head injuries and was rushed to Nakuru Women’s Hospital, placed on life support — then later died despite efforts to resuscitate him.
Njeri DeLeon, who was to turn 17 in March, was transferred to Nairobi Hospital the next morning. She underwent two surgeries, the second lasting about seven hours. Doctors reported significant swelling in her brain and placed her in an induced coma to stabilize her. She passed away several days later. All three children died within 12 days. Wangui and Christopher survived with reportedly minor injuries — but “minor” is a cruel word in the shadow of this kind of loss.
Kenya’s highways are killing us — and the numbers prove it
What happened near Gilgil wasn’t just a freakish tragedy. It happened inside a national crisis. According to NTSA data reported by Daily Nation, Kenya recorded 4,748 road deaths in 2024, up from 4,324 in 2023. That translates to at least 13 deaths per day on Kenyan roads. And Kenya’s own road safety planning documents acknowledge that the country records about 4,000 road traffic fatalities annually on average.
So when you place Wangui and Christopher’s story in that national picture, it becomes even more haunting: this is not just one family’s misfortune. This is systemic failure that keeps producing funerals.
And the Nairobi–Nakuru highway, especially around sections like Gilgil, has repeatedly appeared in reports and breaking news as a deadly crash corridor — often involving trailers and PSVs, the same fatal combination that tore through the Winkelpecks’ vehicle. Kenya has normalised road trauma so deeply that we now read death tolls like weather updates.
But for families like this one, it is not “statistics.” It is names, identities and lives cut brutally short just when they should be taking off.
The grief didn’t come once — it came three times
There is something almost unbearable about the timeline. One death on the roadside. Another in hospital on life support. Another after surgery, swelling, hope, coma.
A mother and stepfather waking every day to a different kind of nightmare — first shock, then waiting, then praying, then bargaining, then losing again.
Three times.
It is not just grief. It is repeated grief — grief with intervals. The kind that gives you a false sense that maybe, just maybe, one child will survive… and then the world takes that too.
“Meant to support other vulnerable children” — and returned empty
The cruelest line in this story is not about the crash. It is about the purpose of the trip.
Relatives say Wangui travelled often to Kenya to spend time with her children and support a Bungoma children’s home she had served for years.
So this was not a mother chasing leisure.
This was a mother trying to pour herself into others, teaching her children compassion by example, showing them Kenya not just as a vacation — but as responsibility.
And then Kenya’s highways robbed her of all of them.
Aftermath: the kind of planning no parent should do
After the crash, burial arrangements for the two boys were postponed as the family focused on saving Njeri. When Njeri died, the family consulted and decided to cremate all three children.
A memorial and funeral service was announced at International Christian Centre (ICC), Mombasa Road, followed by cremation at Kariokor Crematorium.
Their biological father, Darwin DeLeon, travelled to Kenya shortly after the accident to join the family in laying the children to rest. Reports indicate Njeri and Emmanuel were from Wangui’s first marriage, while Kairo was born from her second marriage with Christopher, who was in the PSV with them.
So grief brought together what love had built — a blended family now united not by celebration, but by burial.
The Nakuru Highway doesn’t just carry people — it takes them
Somewhere near Gilgil, a mother’s life ended without her dying. Because there are losses you can recover from. And then there are losses that rearrange your identity forever.
When the Winkelpecks left Waterloo, Iowa, they were heading to Kenya with children who still had birthdays waiting for them in March and May. They returned with dates that will never become birthdays again.
And Kenya, once again, was reminded — in the sharpest, most painful way — that our roads are not just dangerous. They are deadly. And until we stop treating road carnage as “normal,” families like this one will keep paying the price.
