Going on safari is on many a bucket list. But sometimes, the dangers far outweigh the benefits of such an adventure.
Julie Ward was born on April 20th, 1960 in Bury St Edmunds, England. She was a publishing assistant and an amateur wildlife photographer. But her adventures in photographing the wildlife of Kenya would quickly make her infamous.
In February of 1988, Julie set off for Kenya, intent on pursuing her career as a photographer. She resided mainly in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, where she was in contact with her family through the first seven months of her trip, and, by all accounts, seemed pleased with her progress.
In September of 1988, Julie had decided that she wanted to photograph the Great Wildebeest Migration. She wanted to be front and centre, snapping photos as herds upon herds of wildebeests, gazelles, and zebras travelled across Tanzania, moved through the Serengeti, and made way toward the Maasai Mara game reserve.
Determined, Julie set off with her friend, an Australian man by the name of Glen Burns. Things seemed to be going well. Until September 5th.
On the 5th, the Suzuki jeep that the pair had been travelling in broke down. Glen took it upon himself to return to Nairobi, while Julie wanted to remain at the Mara Serena Lodge, where they’d planned on staying the night.
The following day, on the 6th, Glen returned and the Suzuki was repaired. Julie took it, and drove off towards Sand River. She was planning to camp out, by herself, as she was known to do. She didn’t want to miss an opportunity to catch the perfect shot. This was the last time anyone saw Julie alive.
Glen reported Julie as a missing person when she never returned from her camp out. Word quickly spread to Julie’s father, John, back home in England. Right away, he travelled to Kenya with the intention of searching for, and finding, his daughter.
John hired a plane, and had the pilot fly over the spots of the game reserve where Julie was known to make camp. During one such fly over, the pilot spotted the Suzuki in a gulley next to a river. John was informed, and decided to head towards the river in order to investigate for himself.
On September 13th, 1988, John Ward found the body of his daughter, dismembered and burned.
John was heartbroken. And he wanted to know the truth. But that wasn’t going to be easy.
Kenyan officials tried to posit the theory that Julie had been torn apart and eaten by lions, then struck by lightning. However, this theory was quickly quashed.
John hired a British pathologist to examine Julie’s body. They found that she had been dismembered with a machete, and then set alight with petrol. Furthermore, it was found that a coroner’s report submitted by Kenyan officials had been altered. The altered report made an effort to hide the fact that Julie’s bones had been cut by a sharp blade. What were they trying to hide?
With such discrepancies between the official Kenyan reports and the ones put forward by the investigators John hired, it didn’t take long for multiple theories to begin circulating.
One theory stated that the Kenyan reports had been altered in order to hide the fact that Julie had been having an affair with the son of a prominent politician, who subsequently murdered her.
Another theory posited that Julie had intended on committing suicide, and animals had gnawed on her sunburned body.
Others posited that John hired investigators and the pathologist to simply agree with his opinions that Julie had been murdered simply because he wanted someone – anyone – held responsible.
With so many theories flying around, it was difficult to get to the truth – a truth which John accused the Kenyan government of covering up in order to protect the country’s tourism industry.
Over the years, John was left unsatisfied with how his daughter’s case was being investigated. He made over 100 trips to Kenya in order to put pressure on the authorities in order to make them investigate thoroughly and conclusively.
With the pressure on, Kenyan investigators came to the conclusion that two park rangers murdered Julie Ward, and set her alight to hide the evidence. A trial was held, but both men were acquitted in Kenya in 1992.
At the conclusion of this trial, the presiding judge made the recommendation to investigators that the head park ranger be investigated for his suspected part in what had, finally, been declared a murder by Kenyan officials.
Nothing came of the recommendation until 1997, when a team of Kenyan police officers reopened and reexamined the murder investigation of Julie Ward.
In 1998, Simon Ole Makallah, head park ranger of the Maasai Mara game reserve, was arrested for Julie’s murder. He, too, was acquitted at trial in 1999.
Frustrated, John took the investigation home, hoping for better results.
In 2004, an inquest held in Ipswich found that Julie Ward had been the victim of an ‘unlawful killing’. The inquest also discovered testimony from an anonymous source – a supposed Kenyan intelligence officer – who claimed to have witnessed her murder.
The anonymous source claimed that three men saw Julie camping alone, and struck while they figured they had good luck. They attacked her, raped her, then murdered her and set her on fire to hide the evidence. The supposed gang-rapists have never been named, the this claim has never been substantiated.
The source finished his claim by stating that he had been far too afraid to stop them at the time of the attack, and had gone into hiding as he feared for his life.
As of 2018, no one has been held accountable for the murder of Julie Ward, and her father, John, still petitions for information.
Nothing new has come forward about the case, and John is currently campaigning to media outlets and Kenyan officials to obtain DNA evidence from a person, or multiple persons, he suspects of being involved in Julie’s murder.
As the Buzzfeed Unsolved boys would say – the death of Julie Ward remains unsolved.
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Sources:
The Mysterious Murder of Julie Ward and the Search for Answers – Kara Goldfarb – All That’s Interesting
Julie Ward: Father wants DNA in 1988 Murder Case – BBC News
Police Investigate Julie Ward Murder in Kenya – Maev Kennedy – The Guardian
Killing of Julie Ward Wikipedia page