Joan Root - Murder

Murder

In the last years of her life, like many other white or European landowners, she was subjected to harassment and threats. On one occasion, someone threw a brick through her living-room window and stole her cell phone, but she escaped out the back door. The previous year she had been carjacked and had received threatening text messages on her cell phone, but she refused to leave. After a burglary in September 2005, four months before her murder, Root had steel doors installed on each side of her bedroom, which already had bars on the windows. Still, she wouldn't leave – even when an informant allegedly leaked news that a gang was going to "do" her (kill her) soon.

On 13 January 2006, five days before her 70th birthday, Joan Root was murdered at her home in Lake Naivasha by four men who came to her door carrying AK-47s. There were many suspects such as disgruntled former employees, criminal gangs, organized crime rackets, poachers, those whose economic interests were threatened by her activism and even Task Force members. The four men who were arrested and charged with her murder pleaded not guilty and were acquitted in August 2007. Some involved in the case believe it was a contract killing, but the question of who paid for it remains unanswered.