Julie Ward had indicated that she would be back home by ‘early September’ from her Kenyan trip. When September 10 came without her return or any word on her whereabouts, her father John Ward, who died this week, got nervous.
There were no mobile phones to reach Muff, as Julie was known in the family. The only contact he had was that of Paul and Natasha Dixon, who were running a camping site on their 40-acre land in Langata, Nairobi.
Ward, anxious about Julie, called Natasha: “Is our young lady there by any chance?” Ward sensed that something was amiss as Natasha hesitated before she answered.
“As a matter of fact, we are a little worried about her,” said Natasha.
For 35 years, the British hotelier was unable to solve the puzzle of his daughter’s death and the apparent attempt to cremate her body inside the sprawling Maasai Mara Game Reserve. Ward flew to Nairobi, knocked on many government doors and spent millions of shillings seeking the truth about his daughter’s death.
Julie had gone to the Maasai Mara, together with a friend, Glen Burns, to photograph the annual migration of the wildebeest when her Suzuki Jeep broke down. She was expected to fly out on September 10 and Paul had planned to drop her at the airport.
But on the night of September 4, Glen Burns had arrived back in Lang’ata alone bringing with him a petrol pump from Julie’s Jeep.
The Jeep had been towed to Serena Lodge and Julie was waiting for a replacement. The spare part was sent by an Air Kenya flight on Monday, September 5. Paul was hoping that if the car was repaired, Julie would be back in Nairobi by the evening of Tuesday.
“Paul discovered that the pump had been fitted at Serena Lodge on Monday afternoon, that Julie had stayed in the lodge on Monday night and had planned to leave early Tuesday morning. However, on Tuesday, 6 September, instead of leaving early, Julie had not left until midday,” her father would later write in his book, Animals are Innocent.
On the night before, some bar patrons had tried to dissuade her from travelling alone from the Maasai Mara and suggested that she could take a flight to Nairobi and leave the Jeep. Alternatively, she was asked to wait for a convoy of trucks heading to Nairobi.
British tourist Julie Ward (centre) who was killed in Maasai Mara Game Reserve 33 years ago.
Photo credit: Pool
On Tuesday, even after the new pump was fixed, the Jeep would not start. The Serena mechanic fixed the problem, and, by midday, Julie settled her account and left. She was alone. When she didn’t make it to Nairobi on Wednesday, Paul and Doug started searching for her in hospitals and police stations.
“Doug had gone to his guest cottage and found an air ticket on the table. It was in Julie’s name and showed that she had intended to start her journey back to England that very Saturday. Now I was very worried.”
By the time John Ward arrived in Nairobi, he was worried about the lethargy within the Kenyan police department:
“If a young woman was missing in Hyde Park, in the centre of London, for just one night, two hundred policemen would be sent out searching the park and every other copper in the land would be keeping his eyes open. Yet here in Nairobi, I was being told that it was a real achievement to get any police officer to even take the matter seriously,” Ward later wrote.
The private search started. An informant had said that a Jeep had been sighted driving towards Loliondo. The search crew, led by Andy Stepanovich, later spotted the jeep inside the gully. As John Ward was directed to the site, he was hopeful that Julie was alive, but to his disappointment, Julie wasn’t there. The car was locked. Another radio call from Keekorok would jolt him: “The body has been found”.
Then clarification came: “They have not found a body, only a leg. There has been a fire.”
It was a painful end to the search for his beloved daughter and the start of a long search for justice, as John Ward tried to unravel what ended her life.
Kenya’s Chief Government Pathologist, Dr Jason Kaviti, described by John Ward as a “small, grey-haired man” met Julie’s father at the Lee Funeral Home.
Julie Ward, who was found murdered in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in September 1988.
Photo credit: File | nation Media Group
“Why did you falsify this report,” John Ward sought to know about the alterations made to the post-mortem report. “I don’t often get really angry but this particular afternoon I was very angry indeed — and Kaviti knew it. ‘In England, you would be struck off the medical register for doing what you have done. Don’t you know that it is a serious offence to falsify an official document? Why did you do it? Did anyone instruct you?’”
Kaviti had concluded that Julie had been killed by wild animals and John Ward was not taking that: “How is it possible for the leg to become burnt after the injuries, without foul play being involved? Are you suggesting that lions lit a fire and tried to burn the leg?”
Kaviti did not speak. Ward sought to know who had asked him to make the alterations. But the answers were never forthcoming. Many trips and judicial inquiries later, Ward continued to seek justice.
Police Commissioner Philip Kilonzo was of no help either. According to Ward, he was also involved in the cover-up. For several days, Kilonzo was quoted in the media saying that Julie had gotten lost, wandered away from her stranded Jeep and had then been attacked and killed by wild animals. Another police officer told the press how the police had used their helicopter to search the vast park and had found her Jeep parked near Sand River. It was a lie.
The government's position was that Julie’s death was a tragic accident. There was no mention of murder. No mention of the remains being burnt and no mention that an official murder investigation was underway.
In July 1998, the chief park warden Simon Ole Makallah was charged with the murder, but on 16 September 1999, he was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
John Ward and his wife Jan Ward died within days of each other in the UK. Their sons, Bob and Tim, have vowed to continue with the search for the truth behind their sister’s death. But Julie Ward’s case remains one of cover-ups and high-level politics.
