Just a few months ago, clad in a tiny Cleveland Cavaliers jersey, 2-year-old Benny Mbombo sang and danced along to “Baby Shark” while his mother recorded on her phone.
On the morning of Sept. 27, his mother was getting Benny, and his two older brothers, 5 and 7, ready for church. They were running late. Marthe Mukwama Mupeka called the boys upstairs. Two came. She sent her eldest back down to get Benny.
Her eldest returned with a diaper, but without his little brother. Mupeka frantically searched the apartment. Then she saw the open door.
Outside, she shouted his name: “Benny! Benny!”
The search that began that Sunday morning at the Polaris Place Apartments and included Columbus police, dozens of concerned neighbors, search dogs and a police helicopter
ended with the Columbus police dive team pulling Benny’s body out of a stormwater retention pond at around 3 p.m.
Benny’s death comes just two months after Columbus police found 2-year-old Georgina Villar face down in a retention pond at the Bayside Commons Apartment Homes on the city's Northwest Side near Hilliard. In the last 13 years, at least 13 children have died from drowning in retention ponds in Columbus.
Columbus has more than a hundred retention ponds at apartment complexes built to comply with stormwater rules, many of them beautiful water features but dangerously deep and unfenced. The pond where Benny was found is unfenced but sits next to a pool that is fenced, as required by law.
Columbus City Hall officials have recognized and debated on the problem for years. In late 2024, Columbus City Council passed new regulations requiring warning notices to tenants, life preservers and signs. The legislation also allowed the city to declare problematic ponds as nuicances and force their owners to make changes like erecting fence barriers or putting up more signs. Nearly two years later, Columbus Building & Zoning has not pursued declaring any pond as a nuisance.
Columbus City Council President Pro Tempore Rob Dorans, who introduced the previous legislation, told The Dispatch there needs to be more urgency and ponds with fatalities should face scrutiny, at least.
“I cannot imagine what the family is going through,” said Dorans, who has a 5-year-old son. “We can’t pass a piece of legislation like this two years ago, let it sit on a shelf and just have tragedy after tragedy continue.”
Anthony Celebrezze, deputy director of the Columbus Department of Building and Zoning Services, said code officers took months to identify and inspect the 108 retention ponds at apartment complexes in the city and work with owners to bring all of the ponds into compliance. He said city code enforcement officers have cited four properties, including the Bayside Commons where Georgina died, for not having Coast Guard-approved life-saving rings.
Celebrezze said Building and Zoning Services hasn't seen the need to pursue any properties as nuisances.
"Some of these places were starting to take steps," Celebrezze said. "We know with these ponds, there's going to be accidents, and we're trying to figure out what is the best way to protect the public from these ponds."
Dorans said what happened with Benny and Georgina could happen to any parent and the city needs to do more. After Georgina's death, he began researching more pond regulations that he hopes to pass by the end of 2026.
Mayor Andrew Ginther said he’s a dad and is also thinking of Benny’s family after this tragic death. Ginther said he’s open to ideas council or Building & Zoning may pursue to make ponds safer.
“I’m all ears,” Ginther said. “We want to do everything we can to protect the children and families of this community.”
‘Je savais pas’ A mother searches for answers
Benny's family immigrated to the United States from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018. They lived in Maryland, where their oldest son was born, before moving to the Columbus area for a slower pace of life and better job opportunities. Benny's father, Copain Kabinyanga, works as a truck driver.
Following a naming tradition practiced where they are from, Benny has the surname of Kabinyanga’s older brother.
In 2025, the family moved from Reynoldsburg to Polaris Place so their children could attend Olentangy Local Schools. Their parents kept them close, taking them to daycare or Scene 75 or watching them play inside their apartment.
“Je savais pas,” meaning "I didn’t know."
Mupeka, 32, repeated the words as she recounted how quickly Benny disappeared that Sunday morning. Speaking with The Dispatch in French, she estimated no more than 10 minutes passed between when she stopped hearing his voice and when she was outside searching, after first looking inside.
Recounting what happened, she broke down.
“I feel so broken. Like there is nothing inside of me,” Mupeka said. “How can I go to sleep with three of my babies and wake up with only two? I can not understand.”
Michelle Sinkovich, a neighbor who joined the search, said she sees a lot of young children unsupervised running around the complex, but this family's children was never among them. That day, Sinkovich knocked on doors and asked people to help. She estimated 50 or 60 people, perhaps more, searched for Benny.
“I was even at the pond,” Sinkovich said. “I was looking for something floating, but I didn't see anything.”
Mupeka said she also entered the pond during the search but did not find him.
Kabinyanga was away from home when he received a call telling him his son was missing. He said it never crossed his mind that Benny would die that day.
Mupeka said she was wary of water and had never taken Benny near the pond. And going outside alone was unlike Benny, both his parents said.
“If Benny needed to go outside, he will take you, he won’t go by himself,” Kabinyanga said.
Kabinyanga believes a fence should have separated the pond from the apartments facing it.
City Hall looks to make ponds safer
Columbus has so many retention ponds in part because the city’s population has boomed in recent decades, since governments began requiring stormwater retention. And in places where land is more expensive, developers often build stormwater retention underground, said Dorans.
Franklin County Coroner Nathaniel Overmire advocated in 2024 for Columbus to do more to regulate these ponds.
"These are some of the most preventable deaths that I see," Overmire told The Dispatch. "It's maybe only a few cases but it breaks my heart we’re not having these babies live their full lives."
Overmire said he'd also like to see more done to increase awareness and access to water safety or swimming lessons for kids.
A fencing requirement for apartment complex retention ponds has long been discussed, but property owners with the Columbus Apartment Association said fencing obstructs wildlife, can impede rescuers, and is expensive to install and maintain.
"At the end of the day, kids just keep dying, so this cannot just be a question about cost," Dorans said.
Dorans told The Dispatch he is looking into quickly introducing a "no-mow" ordinance for around retention ponds so that tall grass creates a natural barrier and deterrent around the pond for young children. Other cities have passed such ordinances and have fewer drownings, he said.
Dorans also wants to strengthen annual tenant warnings, possibly requiring hand-delivered, city-written notices in multiple languages.
Neither of Benny's parents recalled being directly warned about the pond, although they acknowledged that information could have been included in their rental paperwork.
Someone working at the Polaris Place Apartments' leasing office told The Dispatch that the property could not comment for this story. Celebrezze said Polaris Place Apartments' ponds are in compliance with the 2024 regulations.
“Say ‘hi’ to the moon”
At home, Benny’s parents are trying to help his brothers understand where their baby brother has gone - the one who loved to dance to music and insisted on sharing his snacks.
“We tell the kids that Benny went outside and now Benny is with God,” Kabinyanga said.
They have given the boys a way to keep talking to their little brother.
“Whenever you see the moon just say ‘hi’ to the moon,” their father tells them, “and Benny is there.”
Government and politics reporter Jordan Laird can be reached at jlaird@dispatch.com. Follow her on X, Instagram and Bluesky at @LairdWrites.
Trending reporter Amani Bayo can be reached at abayo@dispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Two toddlers, two Columbus ponds and a push to prevent another death
