“It’s true he has died from the [burn] injuries,” Dr Owen Menach from Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in the town of Eldoret told the BBC.
Ms Cheptegei died last Thursday from 80% burns she sustained during the attack four days earlier.
Neighbours told the BBC that they heard screams before Cheptegei came running towards them shouting for help.
Ndiema was to face charges as police said they were treating Cheptegei’s death as murder, with the former boyfriend named as the main suspect.
Both of them were admitted to Moi Hospital before their deaths.
The 33-year-old Olympian was the third athlete to be killed in Kenya in the last three years, where intimate partners were named as the main suspects by police.
In 2021, world-record holder Agnes Tirop was stabbed to death and six months later Damaris Mutua was strangled.
Cheptegei was born on the Kenyan side of the Kenya-Uganda border, but chose to cross over and represent Uganda to chase her athletics dream when she did not get a breakthrough in Kenya.
When she started getting into running, she joined the Uganda People’s Defence Forces in 2008 and rose to sergeant rank.
Her career included competing in this year’s Paris Olympics. Although she came 44th in the marathon, people in her home area called her “champion”.
Cheptegei is set to be buried on Saturday at her ancestral home in Bukwo, Uganda.
Attacks on women have become a major concern in Kenya. In 2022 at least 34% of women said they had experienced physical violence, according to a national survey.
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