Woman presumed drowned in Kamloops, B.C., river identified as Kenyan immigrant

A friend has identified the 24-year-old woman who is presumed drowned in a Kamloops, B.C., river after her car entered it last Sunday.

Benina Jepkoech, who was originally from Kenya, arrived in B.C. last year, according to her friend Jacinta Mugo.

Mugo, who was with Jepkoech moments before her car went into the North Thompson River around 6:30 p.m. PT last Sunday, said that it likely happened because Jepkoech had little experience driving in Canada.

The 24-year-old is being remembered at a service in Kamloops on Saturday, with Mugo saying her friends across the country were shocked at what occurred.

“She was humble, she was respectful and … she was friendly to everybody. If you would have met Benina, Benina was so polite. Like, extremely polite,” Mugo said.

“We can’t really do anything at the moment without her, without knowing where she is or knowing what we’re supposed to do,” she added. “So, what we’re just doing right now is just pray and hope and wait.”

Mugo said that Jepkoech had come to her house, just up the street from where the car went off the road at Schubert Drive, minutes before it happened.

The sister of the 21-year-old passenger in Jepkoech’s car — who bystanders pulled from the North Thompson River — had wanted to borrow a blow dryer, according to Mugo.

She said the 21-year-old arrived with Jepkoech, and on their way back after Mugo gave them the blow dryer, Jepkoech suggested that she drive the car.

“She wanted to eventually buy a car for herself, and she had not been driving, she’d never driven here in Canada before,” Mugo said.

But in Kenya, Mugo says that drivers stick to the left side of the road, and not the right side like in Canada.

She suspects that Jepkoech panicked when she merged onto Schubert Drive and saw a car approaching her.

“I think due to the panic … she accidentally turned all the wheels to the right facing the river,” she said.

“And then instead of probably pressing on the brakes, she pressed on the gas, and that’s when the car flew and plunged into the river.”

WATCH | Bystanders jumped into river:

Bystanders jump into North Thompson River to rescue passengers after vehicle crash

A search in Kamloops has been suspended until conditions on the North Thompson River improve. Emergency crews responded Sunday evening after a vehicle plunged into the river off Schubert Drive on the city’s north shore. As CBC’s Shelley Joyce reports, details of what happened are cloudy, but it’s clear that several heroes jumped in to help.

Jepkoech worked at a downtown Kamloops hotel as her full-time job, according to Mugo, and also had a second job working at the Afrofusion restaurant.

Mugo had met Jepkoech when they both volunteered for the Red Cross in Kenya in 2022, but she lost touch with her in the years that followed.

But last year, one of Mugo’s friends asked her to pick up someone from the airport.

It turned out to be Jepkoech, and the two remained friends ever since.

Mugo said that Jepkoech’s family had been notified of the tragedy and hoped she would be found soon.

“We are ready for any outcome — whether she’s alive, whether she’s not — we just want her to be found,” Mugo said.

Jeremy Frankel, a search manager at Kamloops Search and Rescue, confirmed that the search for the car that went into the river remains suspended due to the river being swollen from spring snowmelt.

He said rescuers would talk to RCMP before determining when it could proceed, but did not have a timeline for when it would resume.