Murder in the Masai Mara, Ep 1: SOS
The Daily T
The Telegraph
4.1 • 709 Ratings
🗓️ 29 December 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On a cold February day in 1988, Julie Ward sets off on the journey of a lifetime from England, through Africa. She establishes a new life in the bustling capital of Kenya but mysteriously disappears while on safari - leaving her plane ticket back to England untouched on a table in her Nairobi home. When her father John flies to Kenya to track her down, he finds a gruesome crime scene in the Masai Mara that throws up more questions than it answers.
Archive in this episode: NPR, ITN via Getty, The Telegraph
Get in touch: juliewardcase@telegraph.co.uk
Watch the accompanying film to this series: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/28/kenyas-secret-deal-silence-father-murdered-julie-ward/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Telegraph. |
| 0:07.0 | Hi, Daily Tea listeners, Camilla and Tim here. |
| 0:09.8 | Throughout this week, we'll be bringing you a series from our investigations team, |
| 0:14.0 | the result of months of work by our colleague, Catherine Rushden, |
| 0:17.9 | who has been revisiting the cold case of the murder of Julie Ward. You may remember |
| 0:23.7 | that the 28-year-old went missing while on a trip of a lifetime to Kenya in 1988. After her father |
| 0:30.8 | flew out there and found a gruesome crime scene, he spent the rest of his life searching for answers, |
| 0:36.9 | but no one was ever convicted of her murder. |
| 0:40.1 | Catherine's investigation shines a light on a messy knot of cover-ups, |
| 0:44.1 | strange behaviour by MI6, |
| 0:46.2 | and fresh evidence that implicates the son of Kenya's former president. |
| 0:51.5 | This is episode one of Murder in the Masai Mara, SOS. |
| 1:08.8 | Before we begin, I want to warn you that this series contains details that some listeners may find distressing. |
| 1:22.9 | So first of all, can you introduce yourself, please? |
| 1:25.7 | I'm Bob Ward. I'm Julie's younger brother, and John Ward's son. |
| 1:31.2 | So, in your own words, if you could just tell me the story of the wards? |
| 1:37.1 | The wards? |
| 1:40.1 | Well, I suppose the wards were a completely normal family with a very normal, happy, loving upbringing. |
| 1:50.6 | Dad was a self-made man. |
| 1:52.4 | It's March 2024 and I'm in Bob Ward's childhood home in Suffolk in the east of England. |
| 2:00.1 | It's a rambling building, painted a pale yellow and set back from the road. |
| 2:06.6 | A sign at the top of the driveway spells out the word Saxonwood in yellow Gothic letters. |
... |
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