This archive report was first published on 18 December 2019.
On December 16, 2019, the body of Court of Appeal Judge Professor Otieno Odek was found in his house in Kisumu, Kenya. The police investigation into his death has taken a surprising turn after it emerged that the CCTV cameras at his residential home had not been working for a week prior to his death.
According to the caretaker at Groove Hut apartments, where the judge was staying, the CCTV cameras had not been working for a week and he had asked his house manager to call an electrician from Nairobi to fix them. However, detectives investigating the death had told journalists that they had reviewed the CCTV footage and found nothing unusual.
‘I knew that the cameras had been repaired only to realise on Monday morning when asked by the detectives to produce footage that the cameras had not been repaired. I will have to take the matter up with the manager of the apartments,’ said Mr William Nyandara, the caretaker.
The police are waiting on the postmortem to ascertain what killed the professor. Nyanza Regional Criminal Investigations Officer James Kipsoi said, ‘It is too early to allege any foul play in the death of the judge. What we know for now is there were no break-ins and no signs of a struggle in the house. So we have to wait for postmortem to guide any further investigations.'
