Mysterious murder of Jacob Juma raises more queries and theories

Police at Karen station in Nairobi received news of a shooting incident near Lenana last Friday at about 9:30pm.

When the officers arrived at the scene, they found the body of Jacob Juma, not slumped on the steering wheel but lying on his left side.

His golden Rolex watch, two mobile phones, Sh6,000 and a few euros were left intact.

The gunman or gunmen had already left the scene after a mission described by security experts as the work of hit men.

But despite what would have been an otherwise clean job, details continue to emerge that point to the possibility that the fearless businessman may have been waylaid elsewhere, shot and his car rolled into the side of the road.

For a man who had prophesied about his death but did not manage to stop it, his killing becomes one of the high-profile cases that police have to unravel in 2016.

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He drove right into a trap that appears to have been planned and neatly executed.

A closer look at the 45-year-old businessman’s Mercedes Benz revealed that the back window on the right side was shattered.

The driver’s window, despite taking a bullet, remained intact.

The bullets appear to have gone through the back seat window exiting through the windscreen of the motor vehicle.

Police insist the businessman was shot and died at the scene of the shooting even as the mysterious murder continues to raise more questions after security analysts suggested that the scene of his killing may have been stage-managed.

One of the strongest theories emerging from the evidence points to a possibility that the businessman may have been waylaid elsewhere, shot and his car rolled onto the side of the road.

LAST CALL

Police reports say that the businessman was shot seven times in the head. But evidence shows that he was shot at seven times, with bullets hitting him twice in the chest and once in neck. Three of the bullets may have missed him given that his car was shot at 10 times.

Part of the data shows Juma made his last call almost an hour before his body was found in the car.

He had left his Westlands apartment for his Karen home when he met his death.  An investigation by KTN’s crime and investigations desk suggests that Juma’s killers did not shoot and kill him at the spot where his motor vehicle was discovered. It suggests that the shooting might have been done elsewhere.

Juma last spoke to a friend at around 8:20pm before leaving his apartment on Brookside Drive.

It would have taken the businessman less than 45 minutes to drive through the place he was allegedly shot, before going under the underpass of the southern bypass.

But more than half an hour later, he took what appeared to be a wrong turn and ended up on the lane that leads to Mombasa Road.

It is not yet clear why Juma chose a different route or what he had seen in front of him to change his mind and drive to his left instead of proceeding along the route he normally used on his way home.

Some of the slowest vehicles heading downhill to Karen and those taking a soft left to Mombasa Road approach the junction driving at 60km per hour.

The KTN investigation shows that if indeed Juma was driving at the same speed or faster than the vehicles monitored, drive-by shooting gunmen ambushing him from his right-hand side must have been doing the same speed, or going slightly faster.

On noticing the gunmen, Juma would either have sped off towards to Karen after the sound of the first shot or lost control of the vehicle and veered off the road.

But there was not a single skid mark on the tarmac road where police insist the shooting started.

Instead, going by the police account, Juma after being shot several times, simply slowed down his motor vehicle, drove off the highway, parked his car, lay on his left side and died.

The initial investigations suggested that the businessman’s vehicle might have been forced off the road by another motor vehicle before he was shot dead.

Apart from some paint on a street light lamp post, that may have come off Juma’s vehicle, his motor vehicle was intact.

The surrounding vegetation at the purported scene of crime was not disturbed by a speeding motor vehicle that abruptly came to a stop but by police officers who arrived to inspect the scene of crime.

Our investigations show that Juma’s motor vehicle had double-glass car windows that could withstand fire power.

BULLET PROOF

It is not clear if the vehicle was bullet proof or if the double-glass reinforcement was a special feature on the car. But this could explain why the driver’s window remained intact despite taking several bullets. It is suspected that another object was used to break the back seat window, painting a picture of a car that came under fire.

The KTN investigation shows that the businessman was shot twice in the chest, with the bullets leaving a gaping hole on his back. This revelation challenges the police theory that the businessman was shot while his motor vehicle was in motion.

Juma’s motor vehicle also had exit bullet holes on the far left of the windscreen.

A ballistic expert says if Juma took the two bullets to his chest while driving, the bullet entry holes would have been on the windscreen of his motor vehicle.

Our investigations show that the businessman’s right hand was badly damaged. This suggests that the victim saw his killers at close range and raised his hand to defend himself from they gunned him down.

A bullet in his neck indicates that Juma right next to his killers before they shot him.

Initially, police did not find a single bullet cartridge at the scene of the shooting, raising eyebrows about the identity of the gunmen and their motive. Police said yesterday they found two cartridges at the scene. But it is possible that the gunmen had a cartridge catcher.

If not that, the gun men would have to have shot the businessman in a drive-by shooting, disembarked from their getaway motor vehicle and retrieved their cartridges before leaving the scene of the murder.

Police will also need to unravel the position of the shooters since Juma’s motor vehicle had blood stains on the windscreen.