CCTV of hotel where Sharon visited unreliable, court told

A waiter who served slain university student Sharon Otieno at a hotel in Rongo was never summoned by detectives to identify the man who paid for her drinks minutes before she was killed in Homa Bay.

Waiter Andrew Okello told trial judge Cecilia Githua that he does not know the man but he had an interaction with Sharon.

Earlier accounts by different witnesses indicated the man was Governor Okoth Obado’s aide Micheal Oyamo.

It is the prosecution case that Oyamo lured Sharon and a witness, now under protection, to a car 300 metres from Graca Hotel, Rongo, on the fateful day. 

Obado, Oyamo and Caspal Obiero are facing murder charges of Sharon and her unborn baby boy.  They are accused of committing the murder on the night of September 3, 2018, at Owade.

Okello is the 13 prosecution witness.

On the night Sharon met her death, she and another young man (a witness under protection) visited Graca Hotel and were served wine.  

“We only had Caprice and Penasol. They preferred Penasol. Later a man came in and went directly to where Sharon and the young man were seated. I do not know him,” Okello said.

The man, according to witnesses, paid for Sharon's drink. He gave Okello Sh1,000. The wine cost Sh750.

“Sharon asked me whether the drink was paid for. I told her yes. She told me to retain the balance which was Sh250 and they left. I do not know where they went. The man who gave me the money also left through the same door the two left,” the witness said.

Okello said the hotel had CCTV cameras but the manager, Nicholas Oduwo, who also testified yesterday, said they could not be relied on. Oduwo testified immediately after Okello.

Oduwo told the court that on September 5, officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Nairobi, visited the hotel asking questions about Sharon.

“They asked us to cooperate as our hotel was now part of the investigations leading to Sharon’s death. The officers mentioned two guests who had a drink at our place were later abducted and one murdered elsewhere.”

"The officers, according to the witness, wanted to know whether there was a waiter who served the two on the material day of which I directed them to Okello. They also sought to know if we had CCTV cameras."

Oduwo said the officers wanted to see whether they could retrieve any footage that could help them unravel their case.

 “I told them it was impossible to get past data because it had not been working for the last three months. I had reported the matter to owner of the hotel so that they can contact CCTV technician to come and fix it but he never did,” he said.

The officers subsequently left with the hotel’s Digital Video Recorder to analyse it.

Earlier on, Okello had told the court that at the time Sharon’s incident happened, the hotel was understaffed. He said on oath that he served two positions, one as a waiter and being at the bar counter because the Covid-19 pandemic had led to the reduction of staff. The pandemic, however, broke in 2020

During re-examination, Okello said he does know when the pandemic started. He has worked at Graca since 2014. 

-Edited by SKanyara