Kenyan man arrested, admits to killing 42 women, including his wife

July 15 (UPI) -- A Kenyan man was arrested Monday and confessed to killing at least 42 women, including his own wife over two years.

Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, had allegedly killed his latest victim up to four days before his arrest Monday in a murder spree that could date to 2022, according to officials.

"We are dealing with a serial killer, a psychopathic serial killer who has no respect for life," Mohamed Amin, Kenya's director of criminal investigations, said Monday in Nairobi during a news conference over the arrest.

So far nine bodies, "severely dismembered, in different states of decomposition, and left in sacks," have been recovered at an abandoned dump site near his residence. A post-mortem examination of the remains is expected on Monday.

Khalusha was arrested about 3 a.m. local time Monday in Soweto, east of Kenya's capital, Nairobi, outside of a club where he had gone to watch the European 2024 soccer championship final.

"On interrogation, the suspect confessed to having lured, killed, and disposed of 42 female bodies at the dumping site," all allegedly murdered between 2022 and July 11, Amin said.

Another suspect has been arrested in connection who was caught with a victim's handset, officials say.

Kenyan police, who were tracking Khalusha's cell phone signal, said after he was arrested that he confessed to "having lured, killed and disposed of 42 female bodies," including his wife and another woman between 2022 and July of this year.

Police said he strangled his wife, Imelda Judith Khalenya, to death before dismembering her body and disposing it at the dump site at which other bodies were found later.

"It is the transaction of mobile money transfer using Josphine Owino's phone number that led detectives to tracking the suspect," Amin told reporters, referring to one of the supposed victims who was reported as missing.

Local officials first began last week to find human remains of some of the victims believed to be 18 to 30-year-old women stuffed into sacks around an abandoned quarry in Kware, where the alleged killer rented a house about 300 feet away.

It happened as a doomsday cult leader was on trial for alleged terrorism charges stemming from the deaths of more than 400 of his followers in an unrelated case.

At Monday's news conference, police showed a number of items they say were found in Khalusha's one-room apartment, including 10 cell phones, 24 SIM cards, six male and two female ID cards, a pair of rubber gloves, 12 nylon sacks, ropes, gloves, deeds, female panties and a machete police believe was used to dismember some of his alleged victims.

A group of female leaders on Monday called for better protections for Kenyan women after seeing an uptick in feticide cases.

"Those women might have been killed today, but which woman is next in line?" Kajiado lawmaker Leah Sankaire Sopiato asked. "It is so sad that someone who killed 42 people was still roaming out there. Women's lives must count, and women's lives must be protected."

This incident comes as Kenya has been taking concrete steps in recent months to closer ally itself with the United States and place itself on the world stage, most recently by landing Kenyan troops in gang-plagued Haiti as part of a multinational. peace-keeping mission.

President Joe Biden in May said he intends to designate Kenya as a "Major Non-NATO Ally," a designation granted to countries "with close and strategic working relationships with the U.S. military and defense civilians."

Meanwhile, Kenyan President William Ruto weeks ago withdrew a controversial tax bill a day after police shot and killed 22 people and injured more than 200 protesters who stormed the nation's Parliament building as protests erupted in Nairobi minutes after lawmakers passed the measure/

That prompted police to shoot into the angry crowd protesting a bill that would have raised taxes in a nation in which many people already struggle to pay bills and feed their families.