Joy Adamson. Opava (Czech Republic), 1910 Shaba National Reserve (Kenya), 1980. The famous Austrian naturalist Joy Adamson - her real name was Joy-Friederike Victoria Gessner - is best known for her book Born Free, published in 1960, in which recounts the experiences he had to save a lioness named Elsa. The novel reached popularity thanks to a television series of the same title. Together with her third husband, George Adamson, she moved to Kenya, on the shores of Lake Naivasha. There, she devoted herself to studying and painting jungle animals, where she achieved fame for Born Free, although she also published several other works about animals, and her life in the jungle was made into a film. On January 3, 1980, Joy's body was discovered in a remote location by her assistant, Peter Morson. He declared that she had been attacked by a lion, and this was what the media reported at first, but the subsequent police investigation discovered that the wounds were too deep and in no way could have been made by a feline, reaching the conclusion that who was murdered. They apparently used a simi (a popular African two-edged sword). After investigating all her employees, Paul Wakwaro was charged as the perpetrator of the murder. Wakwaro was sentenced to life imprisonment, saving himself the death penalty for being a minor.