A Mombasa hotel night guard who witnessed a tycoon being drowned in a swimming pool by his wife and her American clandestine lover says he was threatened to shut up or face dire consequences.
Emmanuel Wafula who was on duty in one of the villas at Medina Palm Beach Resort said that he saw Amina Shiraz and Jacob Schmalze drown Jimmy Jagatram Baburam on the night of June 26, 2015.
Wafula confessed to police later that Shiraz had warned him against telling anyone what he saw that night. “I was manning the villa where Shiraz, Jimmy and Schmalze were having a party to the early hours of the morning when I heard noise and when I peeped through a hole in the fence I saw Jacob and Shiraz drowning Jimmy in the swimming pool and Jacob was fighting for his life,” said Wafula.
He told investigation officer Jacob Ngao that when Shiraz and Schmalze realised that he was watching what was going on, they pretended to pull him out of the pool and called him to help pull him out. Jimmy had flown to Kenya for a three day vacation in Watamu with his wife, two children and two nannies when he met his death.
Wafula’s revelation implicated Shiraz and Schmalze who have since been charged with the murder. The woman was released on a KSh 10 million bond with two similar sureties while her lover who still has warrant of arrest ran away from Nairobi back to his home in Oakland US to avoid being charged. Ngao told Lady Justice Dorah Chepkwony that after completion and recording statements from all witnesses he concluded that deceased’s death was not accidental but premeditated despite postmortem indicating he had drowned.
“The deceased’s death though as a result of drowning as per the postmortem wasn’t accidental but out of premeditated foul play which up to now sits deep inside the heart of some,” said the investigating officer. It was revealed that days after the deceased’s burial, Shiraz and her family proceeded to claim an insurance policy worth KSh. 50 million.