After a years-long legal process, a high-profile murder case that shocked Kenya has finally reached a guilty verdict: former Migori County Governor Okoth Obado has been convicted of orchestrating the 2018 killing of 26-year-old pregnant university student Sharon Otieno, with whom he had an extra-marital affair. Two other co-defendants—Obado’s ex-personal assistant Michael Oyamo and former county clerk Caspal Obiero—were also found guilty on Thursday for their roles in the premeditated killing. The verdict has been widely celebrated by activists fighting gender-based violence, who say it marks a rare moment of accountability for a powerful Kenyan political figure.
The case dates back to September 2018, when Otieno contacted a Nation Media Group journalist, Barack Oduor, to disclose her affair with the sitting governor. The pair was abducted by armed assailants shortly after meeting, but Oduor managed to escape from the moving kidnap vehicle. Two days later, Otieno’s bloodied body was found dumped in a dense thicket outside a small town in western Kenya. A post-mortem examination found she had been raped and stabbed multiple times in the neck, abdomen and back while pregnant.
In her nationally televised ruling, Judge Cecilia Githua laid out the court’s findings: Obado was the mastermind of the plot, having provided the motive, incitement, and financial resources to carry out the killing. Investigators found the pregnancy was the core trigger: Obado, a sitting governor at the time, refused to accept the pregnancy and arranged Otieno’s elimination to protect his political reputation and personal standing. Oyamo facilitated the execution of the plan, while Obiero handled logistical support and helped cover up the crime to avoid detection, the judge confirmed.
Prosecutors built their case around 42 witness testimonies and strong circumstantial evidence, according to local Kenyan outlet *The Star*. Investigators were able to trace the getaway car used by the abductors, whose tracking device was deliberately deactivated on the day of the kidnapping to hide the vehicle’s movements, before being reactivated the next day—what then-chief prosecutor Noodin Haji described as a “well-calculated move by the killers” to cover their tracks. Oduor’s eyewitness account of the abduction also served as a critical early lead that pushed the investigation forward.
During the trial, Obado’s legal team argued that the affair was an open secret, and that there was no reason for their client to resort to murder. But the court rejected this version of events entirely. All three convicted men are currently being held in custody ahead of their sentencing hearings.
In the immediate aftermath of Otieno’s death in 2018, the case sparked nationwide protests across Kenya and drew long-overdue public attention to the pervasive crisis of gender-based violence and femicide in the country. A 2022 national demographic and health survey found that at least 34% of Kenyan women have reported experiencing physical violence at the hands of intimate partners or other assailants. In the days following this week’s guilty verdict, community vigils were held across the country to honor Otieno and other women killed by gender-based violence.
For Otieno’s family, the conviction represents the end of a years-long fight for accountability. “We are happy with the conviction. We believe that justice has at last been served to Sharon,” said the family’s legal representative. Activists now say the verdict sets an important precedent for holding powerful perpetrators of violence against women accountable in a country where such cases often go unpunished.