Prosecutors Hoping to Convince Jury That Boyfriend of Missing Kenyan Woman in the US Killed Her

The trial of Darnell Sterling, who is accused of murdering his Kenyan girlfriend Olga Ooro in Washington, DC in 2020 began on September 13th.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Maribeth Raffinan told jurors that the trial is expected to last two-and-a-half to three weeks, Keith Alexander of the The Washington Post reports.

Sterling, 57, was charged with second-degree murder and contempt for allegedly murdering Ooro, 34, on July 17th, 2020, on the 300 block of Massachusetts Avenue, NW.

A video camera captured Ooro, her boyfriend and her seven-year-old son walking into an elevator in the lobby of Ooro’s apartment building in Northwest D.C after midnight on July 16th, 2020. It was the last time she was seen and her body was never recovered.

Court documents revealed Sterling’s criminal history, which involved domestic violence against Ooro, citing several stay-away orders as well as an incident in which he physically assaulted her.

Federal prosecutors are hoping to convince jurors that Sterling killed Ooro after returning to her apartment that morning even though they have no one who claims to have seen the crime, no murder weapon was found, no clear crime scene was established and authorities have not recovered her body.

“The government has charged this missing person’s case as a homicide. But there is no evidence that an actual homicide occurred. They have no body. No crime scene. Not even a sign there was an altercation,” Howard McEachern, Sterling’s defense attorney told the jury during opening statements. 

Prosecutors told jurors that although they have no clear crime scene, they managed to find a spot of blood on Ooro’s apartment wall. 

Assistant US Attorney Kristian Hinson told the jury that the blood was identified as belonging to a female offspring of Ooro’s parents. Ooro has three other sisters, but Hinson said the sisters plan to testify that they had never been in Ooro’s apartment.

Prosecutors will also base their case on the fact that Sterling was arrested and charged after allegedly assaulting Ooro less than a week before she went missing. 

As a condition for being released from secure detention, a judge ordered Sterling to stay away from Ooro and agree to show up at his next hearing, which was scheduled for two days after Ooro’s disappearance.

“He did not stay away from Olga,” Hinson said.

Prosecutors are also relying on CCTV footage they recovered from Ooro’s apartment building and across the city and various highways. 

They believe Sterling killed Ooro in her apartment before wrapping her body in a blanket, enveloped it in a plastic bag and placed it on a dolly handcart. He then wheeled her body from the elevator to his vehicle, drove to Ocean City, Maryland, where he dumped her body, either off the Bay Bridge, or somewhere between the bridge and Ocean City.

Prosecutors told the jurors that video footage showed Sterling coming and going from Maryland into D.C. and to Ooro’s apartment multiple times spanning several days. The jury heard that when police later questioned Sterling about his whereabouts, he told the officers he spent the entire time in Ocean City.

Police learned of Ooro’s disappearance two days later after her son was found wandering the second floor of their apartment building and told a neighbor that he was looking for his mother.