Delia D'Ambra

They said it was Julie's and had been found during an additional search of the reserve.

About six months after that, in early April 1989, the first Kenyan police officer who was in charge of the investigation filed a formal report in which he concluded Julie had died by suicide, full stop.

A few months later, in August of that year, an official inquest into the matter took place in Kenya, and John was hopeful he and his family would get some clarity and be able to present their own findings.

By that point, he'd traveled to and from Africa multiple times since September of 1988, and he'd spent countless hours gathering interviews and evidence as part of his own investigation.

He and his lawyer planned to present what they'd found to the magistrate overseeing the inquest, or at a minimum, just publicly raise doubts about the police's version of events.

Andrew Hogg reported for the Sunday Times that John himself wasn't allowed into the courtroom for most of the proceeding, only his lawyer was.

And very little of what his investigation had uncovered could be presented outside of his own testimony when he eventually was called as a witness.

However, I will say that John did use his time in the witness box to push back and question the validity of the police's investigation, as well as a lot of the inconsistencies in the entire case.

Regarding his doggedness to see justice served for his daughter, John told reporter Andrew Hogg that his entire family was unified when it came to holding Kenyan investigators accountable.

He said, quote,

They are not at home saying, crazy dad is off halfway around the world again.

They are as determined as I am to catch the bastard that did this.

From my point of view, it's probably 70% revenge and 30% a combination of factors, including my fear that if the murderer has done it once, he could do it again.

It's not an obsession.

It's more cold and calculating than that.

It comes down to the fact that I don't like being buggered about."

End quote.

Another noteworthy witness who testified was Dr. Jason Cavitti, the chief pathologist who changed Julie's post-mortem report a few days after it was initially labeled a homicide.

When he was called to testify about his actions, he stated he'd done what he'd done because he felt that his underling, Dr. Shaker, had used words and phrases in the initial autopsy report, which was written in English, that were not grammatically correct.

Cavitti said that Dr. Shaker had made those mistakes because he didn't have a clear understanding of the English language because he happened to be Egyptian.