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Justice has finally been served to the family of Ronald Otieno, from Sigomere in Siaya County, that has been grieving the death of their son since November 2018, when he was run over by a vehicle.
In a scene that had initially been stage managed to appear like a normal accident scene, homicide detectives who later conducted forensic investigations into the accident, dismissed the earlier conclusion and nailed the suspects responsible for the murder most foul.
The suspects who had pleaded not guilty found themselves in a tight corner after being confronted with irrefutable forensic evidence, painstakingly gathered by our detectives. Benjamin Odhiambo and Vincent Owuor who were aboard the killer vehicle were sentenced on Wednesday last week to serve the rest of their lives behind bars, after a Siaya court found them guilty of murder contrary to section 203 as read with section 204 of the penal code.
It all started on a fun filled night on November 30, 2018, at a popular nightspot in Bungasi trading centre in Siaya County. The deceased and his girlfriend Mercy Akinyi had arrived on a boda boda and went for a dance at the nightspot, which had hosted a disco. Lovers and common revelers had thronged the club as they danced to local benga and Ohangla tunes, popular in the Luo traditional folklore. All was going on well for the lovebirds until at around midnight, when the deceased picked a quarrel with his girlfriend over an unknown issue.
This prompted Akinyi to walk out of the bar in a huff and board a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck that had been parked outside.Before the deceased knew what was happening, the truck took off with his girlfriend onboard, leaving a thick cloud of dust.
The deceased who was visibly exasperated by the sudden turn of events, jumped on his motorbike with his brother on the pillion seat and together they went after the vehicle. As they approached Sigomere trading centre, the motorbike caught up with the vehicle and overtook it.
Determined to get his girl back from the two men, the deceased together with his brother flagged down the vehicle but the driver had no intention to stop. He accelerated and hit the motorbike from the back, tossing the pillion passenger to a nearby ditch and the deceased on the road.One of the accused driving the vehicle stopped and his accomplice alighted.
He confirmed that the one in the ditch had died while the motorbike rider was still alive, lying sprawled on the tarmac. The accused positioned the deceased along the tracks of the truck and instructed his accomplice to reverse, running over the deceased several times into a pulp. The two then escaped to an unknown destination, after the 3am incident.
Miraculously, the deceased’s brother who was tossed into the ditch did not die. He only faked his death to escape the wrath of the vicious men, who killed his brother in cold blood. The badly shaken victim who thanked God for saving his life listened from the ditch as the vehicle run over his brother’s body several times, before it finally left. An eerie silence followed.When police later arrived at the scene, one keen officer noted that the accident did not appear normal.
Homicide detectives from DCI headquarters were invited and immediately took over investigations into the matter. Police officers were raised across the country and the vehicle that was involved in the grisly murder circulated on the police radar. It was later flagged down as it approached Nairobi and the two suspects arrested.The vehicle that had been thoroughly cleaned to erase any traces of the accident was impounded and later became the key exhibit into unraveling the murder mystery.
A team of homicide detectives drawn from the Headquarters Homicide branch and Scenes of Crime personnel subjected the vehicle to clinical forensic analysis and collected several samples for examination.The results of the tests from the DCI forensic lab and the government chemist indeed confirmed that the vehicle overrun the body of the deceased severally, after traces of the deceased’s brain matter and DNA was found beneath the vehicle.
An autopsy conducted by Dr Thaddeus Masawe at Siaya County referral hospital confirmed that the Deceased died as result of head injury. The head was crushed, while the limbs, ribs and legs were all broken.
While pronouncing her judgment at the Siaya High Court, Hon Justice R. E. Aburili stated that the court was convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the two indeed murdered the deceased.