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Juliette Akinyi Ochieng, the daughter of former Nation journalist Philip Ochieng is dead.
Juliette was found dead in her Dallas apartment on March 14, after being reported missing for several days.
The police were alerted after a friend of Akinyi's filed a missing person report and calls to her went unanswered. Akinyi was a journalist and a former member of the US Air Force Reserve.
Akinyi was born to an American mother and a Kenyan father, but her parents divorced when she was young, leaving her to be raised by her maternal relatives.
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In 2016, she travelled to Kenya to meet her father for the first time in 54 years. During her visit, she spent time with her Kenyan family before returning to the US.
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Ochieng's biographer, Liz Gitonga Wanjohi, wrote of Akinyi's reunion with her father saying, "She did a good thing to look for me even though I had abandoned her. I am also happy with her because she keeps my name."
In an interview, Philip Ochieng revealed that he met Akinyi's mother in the US when he had gone there for studies.
He had flown to the US alongside former US President Barack Obama's father, Barack Obama Sr., and coincidentally, Akinyi and Obama were born in the same year, 1961.
"Barack Sr. and I were in the same plane that Tom Mboya organized for 81 students to go to America. One of us produced her, the other one produced Barack Obama," Ochieng said.
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Philip Ochieng was a celebrated journalist who wrote for the Daily Nation for over five decades before his death in April 2021. His passing was widely mourned by his colleagues and readers alike.
The circumstances of Akinyi's death are still unclear, and investigations are ongoing.