Wednesday, December 31, 2025 - Citizen TV journalist, Odee Francis, has revealed the harrowing realities of crime reporting, where his “office” is not a newsroom but the cold corridors of the Nairobi City Mortuary.
For Francis, the polished packages viewers see on television
are built on moments spent among the unclaimed and the grieving.
In a 2025 highlight report, he shared how many bodies arrive
marked simply as “unknown,” and how his work often begins where voices have
been silenced.
“My office is on the streets… I follow the silence that was
silenced forever by death,” he explained.
One of his most haunting assignments was the Kware killings
in 2024, when dismembered bodies were discovered in Mukuru and delivered to the
mortuary in sacks.
Francis was on the front lines, counting body parts to
ensure accurate reporting, surrounded by grieving families and angry youths
demanding answers.
The toll of such work lingers.
Colleagues joke that he “smells of the mortuary” after
assignments, while strangers sometimes seek him out at Citizen TV offices,
raising concerns for his safety.
Yet Francis insists that ethics demand he witnesses what the
public cannot see, so he can verify and report truthfully.
At home, he consciously masks the trauma, greeting his
family with a smile.
For him, the stories never truly end - because the dead, he
believes, do not stay silent if one knows how to listen.
The Kenyan DAILY POST
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