Suspected child serial killer escapes from police cells
Alvin Mwangi and Roy Lumbe
Police were last night hunting down a self-confessed serial killer after he reportedly escaped from custody on Tuesday night.
Masten Milimu Wanjala, 20, who has confessed to killing more than 10 children in Bungoma, Nairobi, Kajiado and Machakos counties was set to appear at the Makadara law courts yesterday to take pleas in 13 counts of murder when he escaped from Jogoo Road police station cells.
According to preliminary reports, police at the station claimed they only realised he was missing after he failed to attend yesterday’s 7am roll call.
“It was reported by No 73739 PC Alphonse Oderekong and No106275 PC Lizzy Rimba report office and cell sentry, respectively, that one prisoner namely Masten Milimo Wanjala, who was held for the offence of murder and was pending to take plea today was not in the cells.
The officers noticed when they were taking over the report office and cell sentry duties,” read an Occurrence Book report from the station.
Last evening, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) summoned Jogoo Road Police Station OCS and DCIO Buruburu to shed light on Wanjala’s escape.
“Wanjala was due to face charges over the murder of three children. Further investigations are ongoing on similar murders involving other children where he is a suspect.
Court summons have been issued to OCS Jogoo Road Police Station and DCIO Buruburu to shed light on the matter,” (ODPP) posted on his Twitter handle.
Senior ranking police officers visited the scene to establish how the incident happened.
Wanjala had during his arrest in July confessed to attacking and sucking his victims’ blood before killing them.
It is following his arrest at his hideout in Kajiado County and subsequent confession to the killings that homicide detectives from the DCI visited several places in Kajiado, Kiambu, Machakos and Bungoma where they recovered bodies of his victims.
Sleuths also launched investigations against several suspects believed to have aided Wanjala in the gruesome killings.
The suspect was arrested after police tracked down his mobile phone in Kitengela township on July 13 after he tried to use it to solicit ransom money after abducting two children in Majengo area in Nairobi County.
Wanjala had narrated to detectives how he had been kidnapping and killing the children after befriending them.
In his statement to police, Wanjala, a former remandee at the Kabete Approved School, admitted to killing at least 10 children in Nairobi and Bungoma counties.
Detectives had revealed that he confessed to killing his victims after stupefying them using a white substance in powder and liquid forms. Police heard that Wanjala was only 16 when he killed his first victim, 12-year-old Purity Maweu.
He had kidnapped the minor at Kiima Kimwe in Machakos County, sucked her blood and left her for dead.
Purity’s killing marked the beginning of a spate of child disappearances and murders, all of which Wanjala would document by date, until his arrest on July 13 following the disappearance and subsequent murder of two minors.
Killing spree
On July 15, a Nairobi court allowed homicide detectives to detain Wanjala for 30 days as they concluded investigations into the killing of at least 13 minors in the most gruesome of ways.
Detectives established that three years after Purity’s abduction and murder, the suspect killed his second victim, a 13-year-old boy only identified as Aaron in his home village of Kimilili, Bungoma county.
“The vampire has been on a killing spree targeting children between the ages of 12 and 13 years,” read a statement from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) at the time of his arrest.
In the July case, Wanjala is said to have lured two boys from Kitengela and Mlolongo areas to their death trap, before strangling them and dumping their bodies in a sewer line.
The bodies of Charles Opindo Bala, 13, and Junior Mutuku Musyoki, 12, who disappeared on June 30 and July 7, 2021, respectively, were found dumped in a thicket near Kabete Approved School.
Upon his arrest, Wanjala led detectives to another thicket near the same institution, where they discovered a third body.
