Delia D'Ambra

His dishonesty about whether or not he could drive made him look really bad, especially to John Ward.

John accused Simon straight up of having prior knowledge of where to go to find Dooley's remains.

John claimed that reports had revealed that Simon joined the official search party only after Julie's Jeep was discovered, and he'd driven straight to the spot where her burned remains ended up, so that he would be the first person to make the discovery and radio the update to everyone else.

Simon denied those allegations though and claimed that he and others had driven in several different directions around Julie's Jeep before taking the route that brought them to her charred remains.

He said the only thing that had caused him to go in the direction of where she was eventually discovered was because search teams had spotted a flock of vultures circling in the air over that area and his group had wanted to investigate it further.

In the end, after 43 days of trial, the assessors and judge weighing Simon's guilt determined there wasn't enough evidence to convict him of murder, and he was acquitted.

His adult daughter and several members of the Maasai tribe celebrated the news outside of the courthouse.

John Ward was not happy though.

He claimed that the assessors had been influenced and directly contacted by Simon throughout the trial, and that the proceedings had been fundamentally flawed due to corruption.

Author Grace Masilla wrote in her book, A Death Retold in Truth and Rumor, that no one could deny the racial and cultural discourses swirling around Julie's case as it went through multiple criminal trials and continued to stay in the media limelight.

Julie was a young, white British woman who'd been brutally murdered in an area predominantly occupied by native Maasai tribe members.

The fact that her father was a white British wealthy businessman who relentlessly questioned the guilt of Kenyan citizens and the Kenyan government made the issue that much touchier.

When you take into consideration the bloody history between British colonizers and Kenyan native people dating back to the turn of the 20th century, you can see where it would have been possible for prejudices and deep-seated tensions to influence people's opinions about the case, potential perpetrators, and the government agencies that at times conducted parallel investigations.

Simon Olimakola and the two game wardens who were also acquitted of Julie's murder were all reported to be members of the Maasai tribe.

Now, I don't know if these men truly were guilty or not.

I don't think anyone can know that except them.

But it's clear from reading a lot of quotes from John Ward that at one point he was convinced they were responsible for what happened to his daughter.

However, on the flip side, there were also many native Kenyans who felt like the accusations being made against the defendants by Julie's British family members and supporters were a result of blind prejudice.

Kenyan author Grace Masilla discusses in her book that one of the big reasons Maasai tribe members weren't necessarily forthcoming with information to Scotland Yard investigators or John Ward was because culturally the tribe is a very close-knit group and their members always support their own.

They've also historically been at odds with British influences and the norms of modern legal procedures.