Deputy Registrar Rosemary Onkoba ordered Odhiambo to undergo a mental assessment at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital and set the plea hearing for Feb. 8.
Odhiambo is the only one charged for the murder after the court released four other suspects. Three of the released suspects are believed to have helped Odhiambo move Chiloba’s body from the victim's house. The court ordered all three to report to a police station every month for three months.
Earlier this month, a pathologist told reporters that Chiloba, whose body was found on January 4 in a metal box on the roadside near the city of Eldoret, died from suffocation caused by socks stuffed into his mouth.
Peter Kimulwo, Uasin Gichu county head of investigations, told the Associated Press Tuesday that police have ruled out the murder as a hate crime. He said investigators now believe that the murder was linked to a love triangle and that Odhiambo, who was Chiloba's roommate was thought to have been in a relationship with him.
The fashion designer's death attracted global interest and sent shockwaves through the LGBTQ community in Kenya, where homosexuality is taboo and gay sex is punishable by 14 years in prison, although that law is rarely enforced.
Kenya is largely a conservative society and the president has in past said that gay rights are a nonissue in the east African country.
Some information was sourced from the Associated Press
