Detectives who probed the murder of university student Sharon Otieno discovered two used condoms and an alcohol wrapper discarded in a thicket next to her body, a court heard yesterday. .

Crime scene investigation officer Lillian Saka told trial judge Cecilia Githua that before Sharon and her unborn baby were murdered in cold blood, she was kidnapped from Graca Hotel and possibly raped. 

Saka's role in the case was to reconstruct the crime scene and do scene documentation using photographs. Crime reconstruction, according to the witness, means trying to re-enact possible events that might have happened at the scene.

In one of the photographs adduced in court as an exhibit, suspect Michael Oyamo is seen visiting the gents at Graca Hotel before leaving with the deceased. Another photograph showed the point where Sharon sat with one of the witnesses under protection.

Saka arrived in Homa Bay on September 5, 2018, two days after the murder. The following day, she was accompanied by officers from Oyugis police station and other homicide detectives to Kodera Forest. 

On arrival, she cordoned off the area and started taking photos and measurements in relation to the exact place where Sharon had been found dead.

“I took a total of 29 photographs at Kodera. One of the photographs showed a pool of blood where Sharon's body lay, a shoe impression, a condom wrapper and a bottle top. Kibuon River and blood stains along the road,” Saka said.

She is the prosecution's second witness against Migori Governor Okoth Obado, who is the first accused in the murder. Also charged are Obado's aides Oyamo and Caspal Obiero.  

The three are accused of committing the murder on the night of September 3, 2018, at Owade, Homa Bay county.

Saka documented over 200 photos, all taken from Kodera Forest, Oyugis police station, postmortem examination photos, Graca Hotel, Homa Bay-Lela road and Rachuonyo North Subcounty Hospital.

She took the court through the facets of photographs, which according to the state will help the court to unravel the case. 

Immediately after she was done with her testimony, Obado through lawyer Kioko Kilukumi began to poke holes into the prosecution's case.

Kilukumi sought to know whether the investigation officer bothered to take fingerprints of the condom wrapper.

“Were fingerprints lifted from the wrapper?” Kilukumi asked.

“No, they were not my lady,” Saka replied. 

“Why would you miss such a basic thing in such a serious crime?” the lawyer questioned.

“The exhibits were not recovered from me. This was a crime scene I was attending two days after it had happened. I was not the first officer at the scene,” Saka replied. 

She also added that it was a small wrap in that it could not generate any print.

In respect to a show impression found at Kodera Forest, Kilukumi asked the crime scene officer why she also failed to do a cast impression, to which she replied, “Cast impressions are usually done for clear shoe prints. In this case, it was not clear enough. That is why I took a photograph and left it at that”.

Hearing continues Wednesday. 

The-Star

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