GOVERNOR FACES MURDER CHARGES AS 37 WITNESSES EMERGE

The State has lined up 37 witnesses to testify against Migori Governor Okoth Obado and his two co-accused in the murder of former university student Sharon Otieno.

According to an update by the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions on various murder cases, the Sharon murder trial will be held for ten days consecutively from July 5 to 15.

Obado, alongside two of his aides- Juma Oyamo and Casper Obiero, is accused of brutally murdering Sharon, 26.

The three are out on bond after pleading not guilty to the murder charge. The trial was supposed to begin on March 16, 2020, but was adjourned due to the scaling down of court operations because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The murder of the former Rongo University student on September 3, 2018, plunged the nation into a ruckus after her body was discovered in a thicket near Oyugis town.

Sharon also lost her unborn baby in the gruesome murder. A post-mortem revealed Sharon was possibly raped and stabbed eight times in the neck, abdomen, and back.

National Media Group journalist Barrack Oduor who escaped murder told police that he was abducted alongside Sharon but he managed to jump out of a speeding car to save his life.

Sharon had reportedly contacted Oduor over an intimate relationship she allegedly had with the governor and which led to the pregnancy

Obado’s wife, Helen Obado in her statement to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) recorded on September 23, 2018, told detectives that a man, whose mobile number she did not have, called her from Awendo sub-county and introduced himself as a friend of the governor’s family.

Hellen said the caller informed her that Sharon was booked at the Imperial Hotel in Kisumu where the sex episode was to be videotaped.

“I called one of our coordinators from Awendo to inquire if Sharon was part of the governor’s campaign team dubbed Warembo na Obado. We confirmed she wasn’t,” the governor’s wife said.

Hellen said she called her husband, who was at the devolution conference in Kakamega, to inform him of the plot.

“I asked him whether he knew Sharon and whether he had booked with her at the said hotel. He denied that and informed me that he was staying at the Acacia Premier hotel,” she told the DCI.

“I told him (the governor) that I had information of a plan of recording him with Sharon. He dismissed the allegations and maintained that he was not booked at the Imperial Hotel.”

It has emerged that his wife Hellen confronted him with questions about Sharon later, after the devolution conference.

She told detectives there were rumors of the governor seeking a second wife.

Hellen said the claim of a second wife was circulating so widely on social media that she even referred to it at a public gathering during a speech.

She adds Obado later sat her down in May and admitted his affair with Sharon, even telling her the Rongo University student was pregnant.

“I asked him if he was planning to marry Sharon as a second wife. I told him that I honestly preferred he married instead of having affairs. He told me he had no such plans and that he had ended the relationship with the said girl,” Hellen’s statement reads.

“My husband said he would only discuss the welfare of the child if proved to be his.” He later admitted paternity.

Hellen also said she later saw a text from Sharon on Obado’s phone during their son’s graduation in July.

“It was then that I asked him how he was going to bring the baby home without informing our children. We agreed to sit with our children, as the talk of Sharon’s pregnancy became common,” she said.

The governor’s wife sat with their eldest son to discuss the problem after the family returned from his graduation in the UK.

The three later met the other members of the nuclear family to deliberate the way forward.

Later in August, Hellen said, Nation journalist Barack Oduor and former Kanyandoto MCA Leonard Mula visited her home in Migori.

“I personally served them tea at the lounge where they were ushered. It was then that we introduced each other and exchanged pleasantries with Mula since I happen to have relatives at their place,” she said.

The governor’s wife said she inquired why the governor was hosting visitors from Homa Bay and was told that the discussion was not political but related to the welfare of Sharon and her unborn baby.

She denied ever meeting the journalist and the former county legislator again. Between August 26 and September 1, she was engaged at an SDA camp meeting which was hosted at the church near her home, Hellen said.

“On August 31, I returned to Nairobi to attend a Council of Governors meeting for first ladies. I also ran personal errands and bought some building materials for the church. The materials were delivered to Migori via Transline.”

Hellen further said that Obado was in Nairobi on the night of Sharon’s murder.

“My husband, our first and third born, left Migori for Nairobi on September 2. They arrived late in the evening and did not leave the house. I was in Gikomba on September 3 to buy material for a house we’re building for our ailing mother,” she told the police investigators.

Hellen further said that on September 3, she spoke with Ida Odinga — the wife of ODM leader Raila Odinga — through the governor’s phone.

“My husband had left home for the Jaffery Club and had a meeting later with Ida. He returned after 8 pm and did not leave the house.”

The following morning, I learned of the abduction of a Nation journalist and Sharon with Michael Oyamo as the alleged key player,” Hellen told detectives.

She said she knew Oyamo as the governor’s PA. Hellen also said she knows Caspal Obiero. The two have denied killing Sharon.

“I know Oyamo. I do not relate to him outside his official duties. I don’t remember ever having spoken with him on the phone. I also know Caspal. He is a clerk at the county government and my husband’s clansman.”

By Jalang’o TV