By Rael Ombuor
Wednesday August 21, 2024
Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, who was being held at a Nairobi police station, is said to have escaped by cutting through wire mesh in holding cells and scaling the perimeter walls.
Collins Jumaisi Khalusha at Makadara Law Courts in Nairobi on Friday. (Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images)
NAIROBI — A man suspected of killing at least 42 women, including his wife, has escaped police custody by cutting through wire mesh in the holding cells and scaling the perimeter walls, authorities said — sparking outrage in a country horrified by the gruesome discovery of dismembered bodies in a quarry earlier this summer.
Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, who Kenyan police said confessed to the killings, was being held at Nairobi’s Gigiri police station after being arraigned in court as detectives were given additional time to investigate before bringing formal charges. Khalusha’s lawyer denied the allegations and claimed that he was tortured to confess.
Police spokesperson Resila Onyango told The Washington Post that Khalusha escaped Monday night and “his escape was discovered in the morning,” adding that Kenyan authorities are now in pursuit. Khalusha made his escape with 12 other inmates, Nairobi police regional commander Adamson Bungei said Tuesday.
At a news conference late Tuesday, Kenya’s acting Inspector General of Police Gilbert Masengeli said that police officers had helped the 13 inmates escape from Gigiri police station. “Our preliminary investigation indicate that the escape was aided by insiders considering officers were deployed accordingly to guard the station,” he said, adding, “The matter is currently under investigation by the internal affairs unit, and any person found culpable will face full force of law.”
The discovery of dismembered bodies in an abandoned quarry filled with water and garbage earlier this summer sent shock waves through Kenya, where violence against women continues to surge.
Some of the bodies were found stashed in plastic sacks and tied with ropes in the Kware area of Nairobi on July 12.
A worker at the Nairobi Funeral Home, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said there were 13 bodies discovered at the site; authorities are linking Khalusha to the deaths of dozens more.
Kyalo Wambua, 29, who has worked at the quarry for five years, said he helped retrieve 13 bodies. He was asked by colleagues to search the quarry after a tip from a woman who believed her sister was missing and her body could be there.
Wambua, held by a rope, descended into the dump as a crowd of onlookers nearby urged him on.
Wambua told The Post that he discovered the body of a woman in a sack, “and when I looked at the other sacks near that one, I discovered there were more bodies.”
“I was shocked because I had never seen something like that before,” he added, noting several of the bodies were of younger women.
As the bodies were pulled from the dump and loaded into police vehicles, some in the crowd started shoving, trying to look at the bodies. At one point, police fired gunshots into the air to disperse the crowd.
Khalusha was arrested days after the recovery of the bodies. Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations announced in a news conference that police suspected Khalusha’s first victim was his wife, alleging that he killed and dumped her in the quarry in 2022. The agency said Khalusha was found with phones and SIM cards belonging to some of the women as well as plastic sacks. Two other suspects will return to court on Monday, the AP reported.
Activists were outraged at the news of Khalusha’s escape and expressed confusion at how he managed to evade surveillance.
“In this country, we do not have justice as women and as a people,” said Millian Nyamoita, 22, a human rights activist who lives in Kware.
In 2021, another alleged serial killer who police say confessed to killing 10 children over five years escaped police cells in Nairobi. Three days later he was beaten to death by a mob after schoolchildren spotted him in his hometown days after his escape. Earlier this year, Kevin Kangethe, who was held at a police station in Kenya waiting extradition to the United States after being accused of killing his girlfriend in Boston in November 2023, escaped custody before being rearrested.