Obado convicted; court rules Sharon murdered to protect political power

Former governor of Migori County Okoth Obado at the Milimani Law Courts on July 23, 2027. [David Gichuru, Standard]

After eight years of agony, pain and anguish, the family of 26-year-old Rongo University medical student Sharon Otieno now knows who killed their daughter.

For many years, the question of who murdered Sharon hung over a courtroom, a county, and the country.

After 42 witnesses and 81 exhibits, on Thursday, that mystery was finally unravelled.

In a painstaking judgment running hundreds of pages, Justice Cecilia Githua reconstructed the final weeks of Sharon’s life.

The judge exposed how a relationship with one of the most powerful politicians in the country descended into a calculated murder plot meant to silence a young woman carrying his unborn child.

Piece by piece, witness by witness and exhibit by exhibit, the court stitched together what it described as an unbroken chain of circumstantial evidence pointing to one conclusion: that former Migori Governor Okoth Obado, aided by his longtime personal assistant Michael Oyamo and former Migori County Clerk Caspal Obiero, orchestrated a scheme to murder Sharon and her unborn 28-week-old child.

"Having analysed all the evidence on record and considered the submissions by both the prosecution and the defence, I find that the prosecution has established all the ingredients of the offence of murder beyond reasonable doubt. I therefore find each of the three accused persons guilty and convict them accordingly." 

The conviction was not built on a confession or an eyewitness account of the killing itself.

Instead, the court rested on what Justice Githua described as overwhelming circumstantial evidence drawn from 42 witnesses and 81 exhibits, phone calls, secret meetings, financial transactions, fabricated alibis, forensic evidence and the movements of the accused before and after Sharon's disappearance.

By 11 am, Courtroom 1 at the Milimani High Court Criminal Division was packed to capacity, spilling Obado's supporters into the corridors and onto the courtroom floor, alongside advocates from several institutions including FIDA and a heavy contingent of police.

 Sharon's mother, Melida Auma, sat quietly among the crowd, waiting, as she had for eight years, to hear a court finally say what happened to her daughter.

Justice Githua began reading her judgment shortly after noon.

In the dock, Obado and his co-accused sat composed, occasionally smiling as the reading opened.

By the time the judge reached her findings on motive and common intention, the smiles were gone.

At the centre of the case was a relationship Obado desperately wanted hidden from public scrutiny.

Evidence showed that Obado, then Governor of Migori, was in an intimate relationship with Sharon, a second-year diploma student, who became pregnant in early 2018.

Her mother testified that Sharon confided in her that Obado had turned aggressive, stopped taking her calls and withdrew financial support once he learned of the pregnancy, even offering her Sh30,000 to terminate it.

Encouraged by her mother, she chose to keep the baby.

During one of their meetings, the court heard, Obado acknowledged Sharon's pregnancy but expressed frustration over her demands for between Sh20 million and Sh25 million to enable her to acquire a house in Kisumu, a good vehicle, a good job and financial security for herself and their unborn child.

The court also heard that Obado repeatedly pleaded with Sharon to stop posting photographs of hotels they had visited together, before eventually cutting off contact altogether.

Frustrated by his silence, Sharon turned to a journalist, referred to in court as XYZ, hoping publication of her story would force the governor to publicly acknowledge responsibility for the unborn child.

That decision, the judge found, set the fatal chain of events in motion.

Evidence showed Obado grew anxious about the threatened exposure, repeatedly asking intermediaries to "contain" the situation and channel all communication about Sharon through Oyamo.

"It cannot be mere coincidence that the first accused suddenly developed interest in the deceased's well-being," Justice Githua said, rejecting Obado's defence that the relationship was already public knowledge and therefore gave him no motive.

She found that Sharon's pregnancy threatened to expose an illicit relationship that could damage Obado's family life, reputation and political standing.

"The first accused had a strong motive to ensure that his illicit relationship was not known by the public, thus making him a beneficiary of the death of the deceased," Justice Githua ruled.

His renewed financial gestures, including a promised house and plot, were not born of care, the judge found, but designed to buy Sharon's silence, support that was neither genuine nor intended to secure her welfare, but part of an effort to keep the relationship under control until communication finally broke down.

On the night of September 3, 2018, Sharon and the journalist were lured to Graca Hotel for what they believed was a meeting arranged through Oyamo.

Instead, they were driven off in a vehicle where two unidentified men joined them en route to Homa Bay, ordered them to switch off their phones, and interrogated Sharon about her relationship with the governor.

The journalist testified he was strangled before wrestling the door open and jumping from the moving car, escaping with cuts and bruises to a nearby homestead, from where police were alerted.

Taxi driver Jackson Oduor testified that he was instructed by Oyamo to ferry Sharon and the journalist before the two unidentified men joined the vehicle.

As they drove into a remote area, one of the passengers ordered him to switch off the headlights and engine.

Moments later, Sharon disappeared from the vehicle.

The men returned without her, casually informing the driver that "the lady had been left behind."

Independent witnesses, police officers and medical personnel corroborated the journalist's account, strengthening the prosecution's case.

Sharon's body was discovered the following afternoon in a thicket near Owade, on the banks of the Owade River, by a herder grazing his livestock.

According to Justice Githua, the witness immediately alerted police, who rushed to the scene and found Sharon's body lying face down in a pool of blood, bearing multiple visible injuries.

Detectives from the DCI led by Inspector Mary Mugure processed the crime scene and recovered several exhibits, including Sharon's clothes and shoes, two used condoms, three unopened sachets of Trust condoms, empty condom packets and sachets of medicine, all of which were documented in an inventory before her body was taken to Rachuonyo District Hospital mortuary. 

Government pathologist Dr Johansen Oduor testified that she had suffered seven deep stab wounds, including one that pierced her uterus and fatally injured her 28-week-old unborn son.

She had also been manually strangled.

"I do not have any hesitation in finding that Sharon's death was unlawful. It was not caused by natural causes and it was not an accident," Justice Githua ruled, adding that the nature of the injuries demonstrated clear malice aforethought.

The court found that the vehicle used belonged to Obiero's wife, and that its tracking device had mysteriously stopped working for the exact window during which Sharon was killed, evidence, Justice Githua said, of deliberate planning, not coincidence.

She also found that Oyamo had used a phone line registered to someone else to avoid detection, and that Obiero had procured falsified medical records the following morning to help construct a cover story that Oyamo, too, had been a victim of an "abduction."

Call data placed five calls between Obado and Obiero in the 48 hours surrounding the murder, calls the judge said were "not casual," made either to coordinate the plot or manage its aftermath.

Applying the doctrine of common intention under Section 21 of the Penal Code, Justice Githua held that Obado's absence from the crime scene did not absolve him of criminal responsibility.

"The first accused (Obado) supplied the motive, instigation and funds. The second accused (Oyamo) facilitated execution, while the third accused (Obiero) ensured logistical support and concealment to avoid detection," the judge ruled.

Each accused, she held, played a distinct but coordinated role in one criminal enterprise, making all three equally guilty of murder.

The defence challenged inconsistencies in witness testimony, including the journalist's description of the getaway vehicle and whether it was possible for him to survive jumping from a moving car.

Justice Githua dismissed those issues as minor inconsistencies that did not weaken the overwhelming body of evidence proving the prosecution's case beyond reasonable doubt.

After convicting all three on two counts of murder, prosecutor Gikui Gichuhi asked the court to remand them pending sentencing to allow preparation of pre-sentence reports and records of previous convictions.

Obado's lawyer, Kioko Kilukumi, urged the court to allow the former governor to remain on bail, arguing he had faithfully attended court throughout the trial and had already surrendered his passport.

Justice Githua rejected the application, ordering Obado, Oyamo and Obiero remanded in custody until August 18, when the court will receive pre-sentence reports and set a date for sentencing.

Outside the courtroom, relief and jubilation were evident among lawyers representing Sharon's family, who welcomed the verdict as a landmark decision.

They said the conviction not only brought long-awaited justice for Sharon and her unborn child but also sent a strong message that political power cannot shield perpetrators from accountability. 

Dr Nancy Baraza, former chairperson of the Presidential Taskforce on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, described the judgment as a strong warning to those hell-bent on committing femicide.

"This country has lost and continues to lose women to those who do not value the lives and dignity of women," she said.

For Sharon's family, who endured nearly eight years of grief and uncertainty, and for a country that watched the case become a symbol of power, impunity and violence against women, Thursday's verdict finally brought long-awaited answers.