The serial killer who murdered 42 women – or a scapegoat? – DNyuz

According to the police, he is the most prolific serial killer in Kenyan history, having slaughtered and dismembered 42 women in two bloody years, the last time being just last month.

For many Kenyans, it is a big if. The police are treated with such suspicion that when the suspect accused of the murders disappeared from his cell on Tuesday, few seemed surprised.

On paper, the case against Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, a 33-year-old travelling SIM card salesman, looks like a textbook police operation.

Within 72 hours of the first of several bodies being found in an abandoned quarry in Nairobi on July 12, police had identified their man, arrested him and reportedly extracted a full confession from him.

At a triumphant press conference three days later, Mohamed Amin, head of the criminal investigations directorate, praised his team’s brilliance in hunting down a “vampire” who “had a soft spot for beautiful women.”

Not everyone is convinced. Kenya’s police force is known for corruption, brutality and incompetence.

Mass murders, including those of several British nationals, have gone unsolved for decades.

This rapid efficiency in the Khalusha investigation also raised eyebrows.

It also spawned conspiracy theories. As the bodies of women were being pulled from the quarry in Mukuru, a slum in southeastern Nairobi, the Kenyan capital was reeling from violently suppressed anti-government protests that had broken out the previous month.

Dozens of protesters had been killed by police. Others had disappeared.

There were unsubstantiated rumours that protesters had been massacred in Githurai, a suburb 16 kilometres north of Mukuru, and that their bodies had been hidden by police.

The suspect’s disappearance has only fueled such theories.

After retracting his confession in court, which his lawyer said was extracted under torture, Mr Khalusha was held at a police station in Gigiri, Nairobi’s diplomatic district.

He should have filed a request in September.

But on Tuesday morning, guards discovered that Mr Khalusha had disappeared overnight from a communal cell, along with 12 Eritreans being held on suspicion of immigration offences.

Four men arrested the previous night for drunkenness and disorderly conduct remained in custody.

Eight officers from the police station were subsequently suspended, five of whom have been accused of helping Mr Khalusha escape for financial gain.

Troubling questions remain unanswered about his disappearance.

For example, why was the man accused of being Kenya’s worst serial killer held in the same cell as partygoers arrested after a night out?

Mr Khalusha appeared to be living in abject poverty, living in a 10-by-10-foot shack in a run-down tenement block, for which his neighbours said he paid £12 a month in rent.

“This man is a poor boy from a poor family,” said Vincent Okwero, a fellow Mukuru resident who has known Mr Khalusha for the past two years.

“He made his living selling SIM cards on the street, for which he earned small commissions. Where would he have gotten the money to bribe the police and plan an escape like this?”

How did Mr Khalusha escape? Conflicting police accounts have emerged, with one saying he and his fellow escapees cut through a wire mesh window and another saying his cell door was simply unlocked.

It is unclear whether Khalusha’s four drunk and disorderly cellmates shed any light on the case.

Gigiri is also home to numerous diplomatic missions, including the US Embassy and the United Nations Regional Headquarters.

However, no CCTV footage has surfaced of 13 men sneaking around at night. However, security guards stationed at the police station say they saw nothing unusual that night.

The answer to these questions is not impossible: it is inconvenient.

Suspects have escaped from police custody before, including Kevin Kangethe, who left his murdered girlfriend’s body in the trunk of his car at Boston’s Logan Airport last year before fleeing to Kenya.

Mr Kangethe disappeared from another police station in January when he met his lawyer – coincidentally the same lawyer representing Mr Khalusha.

Mr. Kangethe was later recaptured. A judge this month ordered his extradition to the United States.

Given the low level of trust many Kenyans have in the police, it is not surprising that some suspect something more serious.

To them, it is quite possible that Mr Khalusha was scammed, lured into a trap by the police or persuaded to confess with the promise of financial compensation, escape and a new identity.

‘We are being lied to about everything’

Some fear that now that Mr Khalusha has achieved his goal, his life may even be in danger.

“The truth in Kenya can never come out,” said Dixon Babu, an acquaintance of Mr Khalusha in Mukuru.

“We are being lied to about everything. We know he didn’t escape. He was kidnapped and that will probably be the last time we hear from him.”

Distrust of the police is so widespread that it is virtually impossible to find anyone in the Kwa Njenga area of ​​Mukuru, where Mr Khalusha lived, who believes he is guilty.

Mr. Khalusha’s home is at the end of a narrow corridor in a dilapidated building, most of the apartments in it separated by walls of aluminum sheeting.

According to the residents, it is a place where every argument is heard and every secret is known.

“There is no such thing as privacy in the ghetto,” said Joel Tyson, a resident.

“We knew everything about his daily routine. There is no way he could have killed 42 women and we didn’t know.”

Neighbour Janae Aketch described Mr Khalusha as a shy man who had brought home at least a number of women in the two years he had lived in the neighbourhood.

“But the thing is, I always saw them leave again,” the barber said.

“I never heard any screaming. I never heard anything and I can tell you I would have heard it.”

There is also mystery about the whereabouts of the bodies of most of the 42 women Mr Khalusha is alleged to have murdered.

According to police, he dumped all his victims in the water-filled quarry that had long served as a garbage dump.

Because most of the bodies recovered from the quarry were cut into at least three pieces and placed in nylon bags, police say they do not know how many bodies they have found so far – although it is unlikely to be more than nine.

“We have collected a total of 17 body parts,” said Resila Onyango, a police spokesperson.

“The bodies have been dismembered and are in various stages of decomposition, making identification challenging.”

Those who make a precarious living collecting waste from the quarry and who helped recover the bodies say it is impossible that they did not find all the bodies.

The quarry is a popular place for suicides, but according to Enoch Kimanzi, one of the scavengers, the bodies are returned to the surface within days by the churning water.

“I can assure you we have searched everywhere,” he said. “There are no more bodies here.”

This view is shared by local police chief Evans Munene, who also points out that only one woman has been registered missing in the Mukuru area.

What happened to the remaining bodies? Or did Mr Khalusha, for reasons known to himself, confess to killing more people than he did?

But if there are still troubling questions about the case, the suggestion that police killed the victims seems equally unlikely, given that all the victims – unlike most of the dead protesters – were women and none suffered gunshot wounds.

Activists and protest organisers say it is more likely that, if there was a conspiracy, the police framed Mr Khalusha because they were under pressure from the government to resolve the case quickly so as not to further inflame protesters’ anger.

While recovering the bodies, police had to fire into the air to keep protesters at bay around the quarry and a nearby police station.

“There are at least two other theories that need to be considered,” says Eric Ambuche, a community activist in Mukuru.

“The way the bodies were dismembered could point to cult killings or organ harvesting gangs. Such things are not unknown in Nairobi’s slums and should be investigated.

“But this is Kenya. I fear we will never know the answer.”

The story The serial killer who murdered 42 women – or a scapegoat? first appeared on The Telegraph.