Why would I kill my love? asks man at centre of Keroche heiress death probe

Lovers Tecra Muigai and Omar Lali.

In his 51 years on earth, this is the first time Omari Lali Omar is commanding attention outside his close-knit circle in Lamu’s Shela village. 

For the first time, his existence has been flipped upside down.

Now, he finds himself at the centre of an investigation into the sudden death of Tecra Muigai, the daughter of Keroche billionaire industrialist couple Joseph and Tabitha Karanja.

Tecra died on May 2 after what the family described as a tragic accident. Amid the media frenzy, unanswered questions, truths and half-truths, the man who was there when it all happened has spoken out for the first time.

In an exclusive interview with The Standard, Omar gave details of how he met Tecra and started what was to become a 10-month romantic roller coaster.

Omar, born to a family of fishermen, took up the family trade and has over the years made a living from seafood and as a tour boat operator. Locals say his grasp of the island's history has made him popular in the tourism circles.

Good time

But all this was soon pushed to the back of his mind one Thursday afternoon. It was June 6, 2019. The father of five daughters was celebrating the visit of one of them who lives in the UK at the poolside of Peponi Restaurant.

“We were just having a good time and catching up,” Omar told The Standard. “I hadn’t seen my daughter for long so on that day, we had a family reunion.”

At the other end of the azure swimming pool set against whitewashed walls with overhanging palm trees, Tecra sat with a friend. By then, she had made several visits to Shela and she was on a first-name basis with most of the staff of the hotels she preferred to stay in.

It is through these relationships she had forged that she, later on, that night got in touch with Omar.

The wrought iron bars and the dampness in the cells are a far cry from the open verandas and seafront views he shared with Tecra. When The Standard got to interview him, he had just taken a bath. The first one in four days.

When he speaks, he is taken back to the night of April 23 in bits and pieces. There are segments of that night he would want to forget and treat like a dream. But most of the memories from that day, and the 10 months he spent with Tecra, are for keeps.

“We woke up late that day,” he says. “We ate our lunch at around 2pm then we each went on to do different things.”

In her free time, Tecra liked Yoga. She found herself through this ancient physical, mental and spiritual practice and perhaps used it to escape the pressures and expectations that came with her family name.

Away from the sandy beaches, the family said she served as Keroche’s Strategy and Innovation Director.

“Tecra’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of important innovations that enriched the company’s product range, including the development of new brands that we scheduled to be launched this year,” a statement from the company said after her death.

Somehow though, Shela provided an escape. Here, she just got a chance to be herself. Find herself.

“She let down all the walls that you’d expect someone like her to have around her,” a worker at one of the hotels she frequented while in Shela told The Standard. “It was like here she truly lived.”

When the two parted after a light lunch, Omar went to spend time with his youngest daughter while Tecra went in for an hour-long Yoga session. The two agreed to meet later on in the evening.

Sunset boat rides

At around 6pm, they reconvened at Jaha House, where the couple had been staying for weeks. But it wasn’t going to be a normal day. There was something festive about her on that day.

“I ordered five litres of madafu and she ordered three bottles of vodka. We had litres of passion juice as well,” Omar says. The alcohol was so much for the couple that waiting staff thought they were expecting guests.

It wasn’t strange to see the couple walking hand in hand in the narrow corridors of Shela together. Or taking sunset boat rides, riding the gentle waves that come with low tide.

In fact, they had become welcome visitors in some of the islands top spots like Peponi, where they met, the Majlis Resort, Diamond Resort or Manda Bay Resort where they were on first-name basis even with the owners. Omar, because that was home for him and Tecra because she was a people’s person.

At around 1am, Omar retired to bed.

“I was on antibiotics so I didn’t drink as much,” Omar says. “I stretched out on a nearby couch and dozed off.”

A few hours later, a series of unfortunate events would happen that would set in motion a chain reaction that would end up in one family losing a daughter and a sister and another on the brink of losing a father and a son.

There are only two things that can break through the silence that settles on Shela at night. The muezzin’s call to prayer and unnaturally loud noises.

It was the latter that had Omar up in a startle.

“I heard a loud thud and then a single scream,” he says. “I looked towards where Tecra was sleeping and she wasn’t there. I looked towards the staircase and saw her at the bottom of the stairs.”

At that point, she wasn’t moving. But she was breathing.

“I tried to do basic first aid by fanning her and trying to resuscitate her,” Omar says.

After a few minutes, she came to.

“She told me that she was in pain. That her head and limbs hurt,” says Omar.

He called his brother and together they took Tecra to nearby Shela Dispensary. Medical records in our possession show that Tecra was put on a drip and given an injection.

A doctor who handled them told The Standard that the two were inebriated and after examination, it was recommended that a CT scan would be the best way to proceed. But there was an issue. Shela Dispensary did not have the capacity to run this and other tests that the doctor on duty had recommended. Tecra needed to be transferred.

By this time, the sun had started to break through the mangrove forest that shields the island from harsh winds. On any other day, this would have been a beautiful sight. But that morning, all Omar, his brother and brother-in-law could think of was getting a speed boat for the five-minute journey to the King Fahd County Referral Hospital.

She was admitted upon arrival. All this time, Omar and the doctors who received her say she was still talking to them. Telling them how she was feeling. The bleeding from her ears and nose had stopped.

All this time, Omar was on phone with Tecra’s sister. Updating her on what was going on. While in conversation, she mentioned that the two sisters had been chatting around 2:30am.

Emergency evacuation

“But my heart was not for the hospital,” Omar says. “I felt like they were not giving her the treatment she required. She was not improving much.”

By the time the CT scan results came in at around 4pm, almost 10 hours after they checked her into the hospital, Omar says he was convinced that they needed to change hospitals. So he called Tecra’s mother.

From Shela, one can either go south to Malindi for similar health facilities or further on to Mombasa or West towards Garissa for better hospitals, if this was to be done by road.

At around 10:30pm that night, an Amref Air Rescue Ambulance landed at Magogoni on the Manda Bay Airbase for what was described to air traffic control as a medical emergency evacuation. In an hour’s time, Tecra was in Nairobi and transferred to Nairobi Hospital for better care. Omar was by her side through the flight.

At the hospital, more scans were ordered.

“One of the doctors said she was improving,” Omar says. Over the next two days, he was hosted at the Karanja family home and visited Tecra on more than one occasion to check up on her.

On the third day, he was moved to a hotel and on the fourth, he was put in a car and driven to Lamu by policemen.

“Once I got to Lamu they told me she had died,” he says.

Since they met last June, Omar says he and Tecra had only been apart for six days during which she had to attend different meetings related to the running of her family business. During this time, the two had travelled to various destinations around the country, to Tanzania for the birthday party of Tecra’s brother, a stint in Ethiopia and a stay in Zanzibar.

“When we came back, she said she wanted us to settle down and I helped her look for a house in Naivasha,” Omar says. “Lakini Mwenyezi Mungu amemchukua… ni haki yake siwezi kumlaumu Maulana.” [God has removed her (from earth). It's his prerogative. I can't blame God]

Locked up

After the news of Tecra’s death was broken to him, Omar was taken to Lamu police station where he has been held since. This was Saturday. There have been no formal charges preferred against him. On Monday, he was presented in court where officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) asked for an additional 21 days to further investigate the matter.

As this is going on, Omar says security officers have been reaching out to his family members.

“They told my brother to tell me to confess to punching her…and that once I accept this as a formality they will help me get out of jail,” Omar says. “Mimi nimpige kwa kazi gani, nimuue kwa kazi gani? Watu hawawezi kukubali ajali za mwenyezi mungu (Why would I punch her or kill her? Why can’t people accept God’s will?). I am suffering without her.”

Omar says he doesn’t care much about the rumours that have been going around about them on social media.

“Mwenyezi mungu anaijua roho yangu,” he says. “Anajua tulivyoishi. Mengine yote ni urongo mtupu.” (God knows my soul and how we lived. Everything else is pure lies)

He says the two carried each other in their hearts and mind.

“This girl…this girl was special. I know I will never find anyone like her again.”

The family wants the state to release him since there are no charges against him, and he has offered all possible support to the investigators. They insist that the death of Tecra, whom they loved, was a tragic accident as put out by the statement by Keroche.