Who killed my cousin Margaret Alerotek?
Who murdered my cousin Margaret Alerotek exactly one year ago last Friday? Along with family members, I have been waiting for the answer to this question since July 31, 2007 when Margaret, 25, met her untimely death.
OPIYO OLOYA
PERSPECTIVE OF A UGANDAN IN CANADA
Who murdered my cousin Margaret Alerotek exactly one year ago last Friday? Along with family members, I have been waiting for the answer to this question since July 31, 2007 when Margaret, 25, met her untimely death.
Bright, articulate, hardworking, and friendly to everyone, she had just been promoted within World Vision Uganda, and was to start the new job shortly before her brutal death.
On Monday July 30, 2007, the last evening before her death, Margaret had travelled from Kampala to Gulu. Her travelling companions were an American intern from Boston, Massachusetts and the World Vision staff driver. According to my aunt Mrs. Odongkara, they spent the night chatting away as mother and daughter, ending up sleeping in the same room.
Margaret was excited about the prospects of starting her new job. On the fateful morning of Tuesday, July 31, 2007, Margaret and her mother prepared breakfast including orange juice which daughter and mother had together. As she prepared to leave for work, she put some of the same orange juice in a bottle she habitually carried around with her. Some of the orange juice was left in a container at home.
Later that morning, Margaret called to say hello and arrange to meet for lunch at Diana Gardens. Our family bond had grown when we met at the Peace Conference in Juba, South Sudan in March 2007.
A month later, she visited me in Maple, just north of Toronto. It was a sunny spring morning. Margaret was full of life and happiness. That was the last time I would see Margaret alive. Margaret did not make our lunch date. She called to say she was held up at work. I had lunch with my cousin Richard, and left to address students at my former high school Sir Samuel Baker Secondary School.
I stumbled on the news of Margaret’s death around six-thirty in the evening when I took a sick student to Lacor Hospital.
At the entrance to the Emergency, I was approached by Mark Avola, a longtime staffer with World Vision, Gulu. Usually quick to smile, Avola was resolutely glum-faced as he mumbled something about Margaret being dead. My attention, though, was solely focused on helping the young man with malaria and ignored Mr. Avola for the moment. Avola however followed us to the emergency desk, and repeated the same thing—“Margaret is dead, and the body is here at Lacor Hospitalâ€â€”and asked if I wanted to see the body.
It took several seconds to understand that Mr. Avola was telling me that my cousin Margaret with whom I was supposed to have supper at just about that time was dead. This is what the family has pieced together from speaking to witnesses. At about the time I was driving to Sir Samuel Baker Secondary School, Margaret, the intern from Boston and World Vision driver had sat down at Binen Restaurant for a late lunch.
Binen is down the street from Diana Gardens and was a popular place for staffers from various NGOs working in northern Uganda. The three had ordered lunch and had just started eating when Margaret drank from the bottle of home-made orange juice she brought from home.
Almost immediately, she complained that the juice tasted funny or something to that effect. She then handed the bottle to the intern from Boston who sampled a bit of the juice but did not swallow. Moments later, fatally stricken, Margaret collapsed in her chair. She was rushed to Gulu Independent Hospital where she never regained consciousness and was declared dead.
Witnesses said the intern later collapsed after giving statement to police, vomiting yellowish stuff, and was rushed to Lacor Hospital. He was released from Hospital the following day, Wednesday, August 1, 2007 with no apparent ill-effects.
At the family’s request, Kampala pathologist Dr. Kidaga arrived in Gulu around eleven on Wednesday morning and began work around noon. In his preliminary findings, the pathologist observed that Margaret appeared to choke on her own vomit. However, he cautioned that appearance could be deceiving and that a conclusive tests of vital organs and food samples from the stomach, restaurant and home was needed before any conclusion could be made. The critical samples were rushed to Kampala the same day. We buried Margaret on the afternoon of Friday, August 3, 2007 in Pece in the family compound.
In September 2007, tests at the Government Laboratory in Wandegeya indicated that Margaret died from a massive poisoning by cyanide. There was positive evidence of rare poison in the orange juice in the bottle Margaret had brought to the restaurant, in the sample she ingested, and in the vomit taken from the Boston intern. No trace of cyanide was found in the juice she left at home. Someone deliberately introduced the deadly poison in the orange juice that Margaret drank between the time Margaret left home and when she settled down for the late lunch. Margaret was murdered, pure and simple. The question though was why anyone wanted Margaret dead so badly. Along with that main issue, there are several questions that need to be answered satisfactorily by the investigation. For instance, did office politics have anything to do with Margaret’s murder? Margaret had just been hired for a new position within World Vision and had just returned fro a trip in Canada and the USA.
Nonetheless, the mere possibility of office related foul-play raises some pertinent question for investigators. Foremost, what was the nature of Margaret trip to Gulu? Who in the World Vision’s Gulu office had contact with Margaret through the morning and early afternoon before her death? What did she do that day and, most important, where did she keep that bottle of orange juice? If she had the juice in an office area, say a refrigerator, how accessible was that room to the staff and non-staff, and who had access to the room?
From a family member perspective, a year has passed since we buried Margaret, and the single most important question is: Who killed my cousin? Not a single arrest has been made. The police investigation and two others instituted by World Vision have not been shared with family members. Margaret’s family believes that the killer or killers must be brought to justice.
Someone, somewhere, has information related to the case, and should call police today.
Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca
PERSPECTIVE OF A UGANDAN IN CANADA
Who murdered my cousin Margaret Alerotek exactly one year ago last Friday? Along with family members, I have been waiting for the answer to this question since July 31, 2007 when Margaret, 25, met her untimely death.
Bright, articulate, hardworking, and friendly to everyone, she had just been promoted within World Vision Uganda, and was to start the new job shortly before her brutal death.
On Monday July 30, 2007, the last evening before her death, Margaret had travelled from Kampala to Gulu. Her travelling companions were an American intern from Boston, Massachusetts and the World Vision staff driver. According to my aunt Mrs. Odongkara, they spent the night chatting away as mother and daughter, ending up sleeping in the same room.
Margaret was excited about the prospects of starting her new job. On the fateful morning of Tuesday, July 31, 2007, Margaret and her mother prepared breakfast including orange juice which daughter and mother had together. As she prepared to leave for work, she put some of the same orange juice in a bottle she habitually carried around with her. Some of the orange juice was left in a container at home.
Later that morning, Margaret called to say hello and arrange to meet for lunch at Diana Gardens. Our family bond had grown when we met at the Peace Conference in Juba, South Sudan in March 2007.
A month later, she visited me in Maple, just north of Toronto. It was a sunny spring morning. Margaret was full of life and happiness. That was the last time I would see Margaret alive. Margaret did not make our lunch date. She called to say she was held up at work. I had lunch with my cousin Richard, and left to address students at my former high school Sir Samuel Baker Secondary School.
I stumbled on the news of Margaret’s death around six-thirty in the evening when I took a sick student to Lacor Hospital.
At the entrance to the Emergency, I was approached by Mark Avola, a longtime staffer with World Vision, Gulu. Usually quick to smile, Avola was resolutely glum-faced as he mumbled something about Margaret being dead. My attention, though, was solely focused on helping the young man with malaria and ignored Mr. Avola for the moment. Avola however followed us to the emergency desk, and repeated the same thing—“Margaret is dead, and the body is here at Lacor Hospitalâ€â€”and asked if I wanted to see the body.
It took several seconds to understand that Mr. Avola was telling me that my cousin Margaret with whom I was supposed to have supper at just about that time was dead. This is what the family has pieced together from speaking to witnesses. At about the time I was driving to Sir Samuel Baker Secondary School, Margaret, the intern from Boston and World Vision driver had sat down at Binen Restaurant for a late lunch.
Binen is down the street from Diana Gardens and was a popular place for staffers from various NGOs working in northern Uganda. The three had ordered lunch and had just started eating when Margaret drank from the bottle of home-made orange juice she brought from home.
Almost immediately, she complained that the juice tasted funny or something to that effect. She then handed the bottle to the intern from Boston who sampled a bit of the juice but did not swallow. Moments later, fatally stricken, Margaret collapsed in her chair. She was rushed to Gulu Independent Hospital where she never regained consciousness and was declared dead.
Witnesses said the intern later collapsed after giving statement to police, vomiting yellowish stuff, and was rushed to Lacor Hospital. He was released from Hospital the following day, Wednesday, August 1, 2007 with no apparent ill-effects.
At the family’s request, Kampala pathologist Dr. Kidaga arrived in Gulu around eleven on Wednesday morning and began work around noon. In his preliminary findings, the pathologist observed that Margaret appeared to choke on her own vomit. However, he cautioned that appearance could be deceiving and that a conclusive tests of vital organs and food samples from the stomach, restaurant and home was needed before any conclusion could be made. The critical samples were rushed to Kampala the same day. We buried Margaret on the afternoon of Friday, August 3, 2007 in Pece in the family compound.
In September 2007, tests at the Government Laboratory in Wandegeya indicated that Margaret died from a massive poisoning by cyanide. There was positive evidence of rare poison in the orange juice in the bottle Margaret had brought to the restaurant, in the sample she ingested, and in the vomit taken from the Boston intern. No trace of cyanide was found in the juice she left at home. Someone deliberately introduced the deadly poison in the orange juice that Margaret drank between the time Margaret left home and when she settled down for the late lunch. Margaret was murdered, pure and simple. The question though was why anyone wanted Margaret dead so badly. Along with that main issue, there are several questions that need to be answered satisfactorily by the investigation. For instance, did office politics have anything to do with Margaret’s murder? Margaret had just been hired for a new position within World Vision and had just returned fro a trip in Canada and the USA.
Nonetheless, the mere possibility of office related foul-play raises some pertinent question for investigators. Foremost, what was the nature of Margaret trip to Gulu? Who in the World Vision’s Gulu office had contact with Margaret through the morning and early afternoon before her death? What did she do that day and, most important, where did she keep that bottle of orange juice? If she had the juice in an office area, say a refrigerator, how accessible was that room to the staff and non-staff, and who had access to the room?
From a family member perspective, a year has passed since we buried Margaret, and the single most important question is: Who killed my cousin? Not a single arrest has been made. The police investigation and two others instituted by World Vision have not been shared with family members. Margaret’s family believes that the killer or killers must be brought to justice.
Someone, somewhere, has information related to the case, and should call police today.
Opiyo.oloya@sympatico.ca