Lynched Kisumu shooter had lost his job last year, family says

In Kalenjouk village, Alego Sub-County in Siaya County, one family is in shock, struggling to come to terms with the death of their kin.

Until Wednesday, they had no idea that their 25-year-old son was dead and his body was lying in a mortuary.

Ambrose Odero Owino is the man who went berserk a week ago, snatching a gun from a traffic police officer on duty in Kisumu town, opening fire and shooting indiscriminately, killing two people on the spot and injuring a police officer and several other people.

He was subdued in the Friday March 12 morning incident and lynched by an angry mob that descended on him with stones and other crude weapons.

Body identified

Back at his parents’ home in Kalenjouk, it was not until Wednesday that his family was able to positively identify his body which was lying at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital mortuary in Kisumu after detectives seeking to find out his identity published an appeal to the public.

Their shock and disbelief was evident on Thursday when the Nation team arrived to interview them on their kin’s demise. They still could not join the dots.

His step mother, Roselyn Awino Otieno, and aunt, Clarice Anyango, were weeping uncontrollably.

The Directorate of Criminal Investigations had on its Twitter page on Wednesday announced the identity of the man behind the shocking Kisumu attack, moments after his step-mother and other relatives positively identified him.

Weapon handling skills

Detectives are still scratching their heads to unravel how and where Owino acquired weapon handling skills which he displayed during the attack.

The detectives are yet to establish the man’s possible accomplices.

Born in 1996 to Joseph Owino Omollo and Catherine Akoth Omondi, who later separated, Ambrose schooled at Awelo Primary School.

Ms Awino, who raised him since he was nine years old, still could not believe that his step-son could handle a gun, attack and kill other people.

"Ambrose was a good boy, very disciplined, could perform his house chores very diligently and cook so well. I loved him like my own son and he used to call me Mama Denno, his other sibling. I can’t quite understand how he killed people," said Ms Awino.

Mrs Awino, however, revealed that things might have started turning bad when the young man lost his job in Kisumu last year.

Detectives obtained a copy of his dismissal letter from Jokali Handling Services, a human resource solutions company, where he was working.

In the dismissal letter by Jokali’s operations manager dated February 2, 2020, Ambrose was relieved of his duties for failure to produce his personal documents as ordered by the National Employment Authority.

Stopped calling

His step-mother said after his sacking, he could no longer be reached on phone and neither did he call home frequently like he used to.

He had plans to build a permanent house and take his two step-brothers to Kisumu to study once they sat their Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) examination.

"Ambrose had major plans for our home and this was because of the job he had in Kisumu. It appears losing his job affected him badly and could have dashed his dreams and this could have played a big role in what led to his death," his step-mother said.

His aunt, Clarice Anyango, who admitted him to Form 1 and stayed with him for three years, was equally shocked. She recalled giving him a bicycle which he used to ride to St Patrick’s Segere High School, more than six kilometres away.

In high school, he had scored an aggregate Grade of B- (Minus) emerging the seventh best candidate in the school.

“I stayed with him but last saw him six years ago when he left for Kisumu,” she said.

Soon after completing his secondary school studies, he received a letter of admission to join Maseno University, but the family could not raise the required fees to secure his admission.

ID card puzzle

Detectives from the Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau, who are leading the investigations, said they could not immediately establish why Ambrose had never applied for an identity card.

When he failed to join university, he left Siaya for Kisumu in search of greener pastures where his aunt secured him employment at Foam Mattresses Ltd, the Nation learnt.

Police say for him to secure employment, he needed to have an identity card and detectives had finally discovered that he had allegedly scanned an identity card belonging to one Fredrick Oduor Odera and replaced Odera’s names with his.

"He went further to superimpose his image on Odera’s, made a copy, presented it to his prospective employer and, voila! He got the job," read the statement by DCI on Twitter.

But contrary to what the police said, Mrs Anyango said her nephew obtained the national identification card while in Form Three and carried it alongside his original birth certificate to Kisumu.

According to detectives, his employment was short-lived since towards the end of 2019, every employee was asked to produce his or her original identity card, in an exercise that was spearheaded by the National Employment Authority.

"Since Odero knew that he did not have an identity card, he absconded duty leading to his dismissal," reads the DCI report.

But even with his identity now in the open, detectives are still trying to trace where Ambrose’s had been since February last year, when he lost his job, until the day he staged the shooting in Kisumu.

This, according to detectives, will unravel just who he has been working with and what attacks they have carried out or were planning.

As detectives try to unravel just what could have led the young man to kill, questions abound as to whether he was a victim of a failed system — a young man who might have been driven to depression or just a case of a delinquent youth.

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