First on scene! Telling stories about the pain of others and living with the consequences

Dr Robert John Ouko. He was murdered and his body was dumped at the foot of Got Alila in Muhoroni, Kisumu County. [File, Standard]

A dreadful silence engulfed the hall. All eyes had turned to the still film projecting images of the crime scene. The scorched skull. The broken and roasted hands with jutting skeletal fingers.

The sharp bones thrusting through a burnt torso and thick black ash. A tear turned into a trickle, then a flood. People wept. Justice Johnson Evans Gicheru, the chair of the Ouko Commission of Inquiry, who was himself battling tears, cleared his throat and demanded total silence.