Murder in Karen: Who killed Martin Bradley?

On the fifth anniversary of his murder, the killers of ivory trade investigator have never been caught.

Five years later, the killers of wildlife conservationist Esmond Martin are still free. On Sunday afternoon, February 4, 2018, the global ivory trade investigator was killed in his Kenyan home in the upmarket Karen suburb of Nairobi. During the attack, nothing was stolen.

On that day, his wife, Chryssee Perry, a conservationist too, had gone for a meeting – and Martin, a US citizen, was at home alone.

Evidence that this was a planned murder was left in place: The backyard gate, which opened into the bush, was deliberately left open to facilitate easier entry and escape. In addition, the padlock for the always-locked gate was missing. And finally, the remote-controlled panic alarm unit at Martin's bedside was under the bed. While initial investigators had taken photos of this alarm under the bed, it disappeared.

Why the killers of the world's best-known investigator into the ivory and rhino horns black market have never been caught has always been the question that conservationists ask.

Investigators ruled that this was not robbery. Martin's wallet was still in his jacket pocket and had Sh11,000. His watch, with a black strap, was left on the table while his cell phone was in another pocket. Martin was the great-grandson of a US steel millionaire, Henry Phipps, a business partner of philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and had a fortune in Kenya:  some 20 acres of Karen land worth Sh1 billion ($10 million). Scouting movement founder Lord Baden Powell previously owned their house, and the late Martin was the third owner. It was occasionally eyed by land grabbers targeting aging white families in Karen.

 The wrought iron gate had the letter 'M' designed on top and was perhaps an indicator of the stylish aristocratic life that Martin lived in this Georgian house whose white exterior gave it an 18th-century look. New York Times writer Charles Homans gave the best description of the man when he wrote: "He had the mannered, patrician eccentricities of a Wes Anderson character: a dandelion shock of hair that had gone snow white by middle age, tailored suits — from Dunhill in New York and later Savile Row shops — that he wore even when he was doing fieldwork in Yemeni souks or Laotian night markets."

Besides that land, Martin, then 75, was a celebrity investigator obsessed with tracking illegal ivory and rhino horn traders and poachers. For more than 30 years, he had been on their trail, exposing them and unraveling the ivory and rhino horn networks globally.

Together with his colleague, Lucy Vigne, they had penetrated the most dangerous hideouts of ivory trade traffickers posing as dealers in backyards controlled by gangsters and killer mobs. As a former UN special envoy for rhino conservation and as an undercover investigator on the black market, Martin had many enemies. But, like Icarus in Greek mythology, he always flew too close to the Sun. 

That Sunday morning at around 11. am, Martin had left his Mutamaiyu Road house, in Nairobi's Karen suburb, for a lunch date at the Nairobi National Park. He had asked his cook to prepare the packed picnic lunch and left together with his driver. His wife of 50 years also left home at about 2 pm for Nairobi's animal orphanage, where she was a volunteer.

Shortly after 2 pm, after Martin's wife left, the cook switched on the electric fence, locked the back door, and retired to the employee quarters until 6 pm, when he returned to prepare dinner. But on arrival, he noticed that the electric fence had its electricity switched off. That was odd since the fence's electricity was always on during the day.

It is unclear when Martin returned home after his lunchtime meeting. While a fence encircles the property, detectives had been told that the gate was only locked with a padlock at night.

Martin's wife told detectives that when she returned home some minutes past 6 pm, she found her husband’s vehicle parked outside.

'I am back,' she shouted, announcing her arrival.

There was no response, and she thought Martin was asleep. She then headed to the library on the ground floor of the building. Chryssee then went upstairs and hoped to find Martin in the study room. He was not there. It was now getting dark, and she went to her bedroom – they slept in separate rooms – and took a nap only to be awoken by the cook entering the house through the back door.

Have you seen Martin? She is said to have asked. The cook answered 'No' – and that set the alarm bells. She then went to check on Martin in his bedroom.

Martin lay motionless on the carpet, with his face in a pool of blood. Dead. It was 6.45 pm.

What was intriguing about Martin's murder was that there was no forced entry into the house – meaning that whoever killed him opened the unlocked door.

Whoever killed Martin had, at first, gagged his mouth with a tie and stabbed him several times in the neck. He was not interested in his money. However, on the lounge desk, adjacent to the bedroom, was some foreign currency and Martin's debit card, which would not have escaped the eyes of a robber.

The only place disturbed was the green steel filing cabinet, and it is unclear what documents Martin had put there. An injured Martin appeared to have stood some metres from this cabinet. There were some blood droplets on the floor. The cabinet's key was left in the cabinet lock.

By the time his phone was found, there was a message indicating that somebody was conversing with him about land. New York Times reported that the murder was "linked to a property dispute." In 2018, a local publication reported an attempt at the land registry to grab the property. Detectives had also said they were questioning some people, but this is a cold case five years later.

It could also be the work of ivory merchants. Nobody knows.