The Verdict That Shook Kenya: Power, Privilege, and Finally, Justice
On July 23, 2026, the gavel fell in Courtroom 4 at Milimani Law Courts in Nairobi, and with it fell one of Kenya’s most powerful political dynasties. High Court Judge Cecilia Githua, in a ruling delivered with the gravity of nearly eight years of accumulated evidence, found former Migori Governor Zachary Okoth Obado, his former personal assistant Michael Juma Oyamo, and former county clerk Caspal Ojwang Obiero guilty of the murder of Rongo University student Sharon Belyne Otieno.
“The circumstances presented in this case taken cumulatively form a chain so complete that there is no escape from the conclusion that the accused persons acted with others not jointly before the court and committed the offence charged,” Lady Justice Githua declared, her voice cutting through the tense silence of a courtroom packed with journalists, family members, and a nation that had waited almost a decade for this moment.
It was a verdict that transcended the confines of a single criminal case. In a country where political impunity has long been the unwritten rule, where governors and ministers have historically operated above the law, the conviction of a sitting governor-turned-accused murderer represented something rare and precious: the possibility that power does not, after all, grant immunity from justice.
The Night That Changed Everything: September 3, 2018
To understand the weight of this verdict, one must travel back to the night of September 3, 2018—a night that began with deception and ended in horror.
Sharon Otieno, a 26-year-old student at Rongo University, was seven months pregnant and deeply entangled in a secret affair with Governor Obado, a married man more than twice her age and one of the most powerful politicians in western Kenya. The relationship, which Obado would later acknowledge in court, had produced the pregnancy that now threatened to unravel his political career and personal life.
On that fateful night, Sharon had arranged to meet a source for a story she was working on. She was accompanied by Barrack Oduor, a journalist with the Nation Media Group. The meeting was set at Graca Hotel in Rongo, Migori County—a seemingly innocuous location that would soon become the starting point of a nightmare.
What Sharon did not know was that the meeting was a trap. According to prosecution evidence, Obado’s personal assistant Michael Oyamo had orchestrated the encounter. When Sharon and Oduor left the hotel, they were abducted by armed men. Oduor, displaying remarkable courage and quick thinking, managed to escape by jumping from the moving vehicle. Sharon was not so fortunate.
Her body was discovered the next day, September 4, 2018, dumped in a thicket near Kodera Forest in Homa Bay County. The post-mortem examination, conducted by Chief Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor, revealed a death of unspeakable brutality: severe hemorrhage caused by penetrating force trauma and manual strangulation. Sharon was 28 weeks pregnant. Her unborn child—referred to in court documents as “Baby Sharon”—died with her.
The killing sent shockwaves across Kenya. Here was not just a murder, but a political assassination disguised as a crime of passion. A young woman, carrying the child of a powerful governor, silenced forever to protect a man’s reputation and career.
The Investigation: From Impunity to Indictment
In the immediate aftermath, many Kenyans expected the case to follow a familiar pattern: a high-profile investigation, a few dramatic headlines, and then a slow fade into the bureaucratic abyss where politically sensitive cases go to die. Governor Obado was, after all, a member of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), the party of Raila Odinga, Kenya’s most formidable opposition leader. The political connections ran deep.
But something unusual happened. The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), under mounting public pressure, pursued the case with uncharacteristic tenacity. Within weeks, Obado was arrested and arraigned before the High Court on September 24, 2018, jointly charged with the murder of Sharon and her unborn child alongside Oyamo and Obiero.
All three denied the charges. Obado, through his lawyers, maintained that while he had indeed had a relationship with Sharon and accepted paternity of her unborn child, he had absolutely no involvement in her murder. “I did not kill Sharon Otieno. I did not conspire with my two co-defendants or anyone to kill the late Sharon Otieno. I did not procure anybody to kill the late Sharon Otieno,” he told the court in a dramatic unsworn statement.
The prosecution, led by Senior Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Gikui Gichuhi, saw things differently. In final submissions delivered in February 2026, Gichuhi painted a picture of a deliberate, well-coordinated conspiracy. “The evidence paints a coherent picture of the accused acting in concert, with a shared intention to eliminate Sharon Otieno and silence a witness to avoid political fallout, reputational harm, and embarrassment,” she told the court.
The Evidence: 42 Witnesses, 81 Exhibits, and a Digital Trail
The prosecution’s case was built not on a single smoking gun but on a mountain of circumstantial evidence that, taken together, formed what Gichuhi described as “a complete chain” linking the accused to the crime. Over the course of the trial, which spanned nearly eight years, the State called 42 witnesses and produced 81 exhibits.
The evidence was as diverse as it was damning. There was forensic testimony detailing the nature of Sharon’s injuries. There were cybercrime reports and phone data analysis tracking the movements and communications of the accused before and after the murder. There were SMS messages and WhatsApp conversations that painted a picture of coordination and conspiracy.
Witness testimony revealed that Sharon had received threats prior to her murder. Oyamo himself, in a twist of irony, had told the court that prosecution witness number 26 had presented evidence of “real-life threats” sent to Sharon in the days leading up to her abduction.
The prosecution’s theory was clear: Obado supplied the motive, instigation, and funds to finance the criminal enterprise. Oyamo, as his personal assistant, facilitated the execution of the murder. Obiero, the county clerk, ensured logistical support and helped conceal the crime to avoid detection.
“The first accused supplied motive, instigation and funds to finance the criminal enterprise, the second accused facilitated execution while the third accused ensured logistical support and concealment to avoid detection of a criminal offence. Their common intention led to the death of Sharon. These acts constituted malice aforethought,” Judge Githua ruled in her verdict.
The Defence: Alibis, Denials, and the Weight of Circumstantial Evidence
The defence, led by Senior Counsel Kioko Kilukumi, one of Kenya’s most prominent lawyers, mounted a vigorous challenge to the prosecution’s case. Their central argument was that the State had failed to provide direct evidence linking Obado to the murder and that the case rested entirely on speculation and circumstantial evidence.
“Your ladyship, are you satisfied that the evidence adduced… demonstrates more than 90 per cent that the 1st accused is guilty? We submit it does not. Indeed, it does not even come near 50 per cent,” Kilukumi argued in his final submissions.
Obado’s alibi was simple: he claimed he was in Nairobi when the offence was committed and was not physically present in Migori County. His lawyers argued that suspicion, however strong, could not replace proof beyond a reasonable doubt. They pointed to testimony from a land broker and Sharon’s own mother, who confirmed that Obado had been supporting Sharon financially and had plans to settle her—evidence, they argued, that weakened any alleged motive for murder.
But Judge Githua was unmoved. In her ruling, she dismissed Obado’s alibi with a single, devastating sentence: “The first accused’s alibi that he was not in Migori County when the offence was committed does not shield him from criminal culpability. He acted in concert with others to execute the crime.”
The judge’s reasoning was rooted in the legal doctrine of common intention—a principle that holds that when multiple people act together in furtherance of a criminal enterprise, each is liable for the acts of the others, regardless of who physically committed the crime. Obado did not need to wield the knife or tighten the noose himself. By supplying the motive, the funds, and the instigation, he was as guilty as the man who did.
The Unborn Child: A Charge That Fell Away
One of the most poignant aspects of the case was the second charge: the murder of Sharon’s unborn child, “Baby Sharon.” Under Kenyan law, as in many jurisdictions, the question of whether an unborn child can be the victim of murder is fraught with legal complexity.
In January 2025, before the full trial concluded, Justice Githua had already ruled on this issue in a separate determination. She found that while the prosecution had established a prima facie case requiring Obado and his co-accused to stand trial for Sharon’s murder, the evidence did not support the charge of murdering the unborn child.
Section 214 of Kenya’s Penal Code incorporates the “born alive” principle: a child becomes a person capable of being killed only when it has completely proceeded in a living state from the body of its mother. Since Baby Sharon was never born alive, the charge of murder could not stand. The judge acquitted all three accused on the second count, while finding sufficient evidence to proceed on the first.
It was a legal technicality that offered no comfort to Sharon’s family. The child she had carried for seven months, the child whose existence had set in motion the chain of events leading to her death, would receive no separate justice under the law. But in the court of public opinion, the distinction mattered little. Two lives had been taken, even if only one could be avenged in a courtroom.
The Long Wait: Eight Years of Delays, Adjournments, and National Anxiety
The road to justice was agonizingly slow
