Delia D'Ambra

The magistrate also said he knew the wards were going to continue to be highly suspicious of Simon Olimakalo, the game warden who'd found Julie's remains.

But the magistrate emphasized that if Simon was somehow involved, it was unusual that he would have wanted to be the person who led people to the burn site.

In my opinion, I think that's debatable.

I mean, we know from looking at some true crime cases that involved parties can sometimes be right in the middle of an investigation, if not the person who relishes in finding remains or clues.

Anyway, the magistrate officially labeling the case as a murder, though, wasn't total vindication for John Ward.

The court had made it clear that even though murder was the most likely scenario, there had not been a cover-up.

Therefore, the magistrate wasn't going to refer the case to the attorney general's office for further investigation on the matter.

John didn't feel confident that police in Kenya were really going to work Julie's case though, so he continued to carry out his own investigation.

He traveled back and forth from England and kept trying to track down all the people who'd been staying at Sand River Camp on the day she disappeared.

Those efforts sent him and those who were helping him to Spain, Canada, Australia, Sweden, and even the United States trying to track down witnesses and conduct interviews.

He posted a 10,000 pound reward for information that might lead to an arrest.

That amount then would have had the buying power today of over 33,000 US dollars.

So it was a lot of money in 1989.

After the inquest, it appears things in the case, at least in Kenya, went quiet for a while.

But back in Great Britain, John kept being vocal about getting justice for his daughter.

He called on people involved in England's political scene who had power and influence.

Around this time, the U.S.

issued an advisory classifying Kenya as an unsafe destination, and reports of other international tourists being attacked and killed while visiting the country also began to surface.

For example, in the summer of 1989, just a few weeks before the inquest into Julie's murder ended, a foreign conservationist and two Kenyan workers in a park were shot and killed by criminals from Somalia.

Another group was also reported to have been attacked and murdered around that same time.