Suspected Kenyan serial killer among 13 prison escapees; 8 officers arrested

Aug. 20 (UPI) -- A Kenyan man who police say confessed to the brutal murders and dismemberment of 42 women, including his own wife, was among 13 prisoners who escaped a Nairobi prison in the early morning hours, officials said Tuesday.

Officials said the officer-in-charge and food service manager realized the group of suspects , including 33-year-old Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, were missing at around 5 a.m. local time when they went to serve breakfast.

Khalusha fled Gigiri police station with the other inmates, natives of Eritrea who had allegedly been in Kenya illegally after they managed to cut through wire mesh in their prison cells and climbed a perimeter wall, police say.

Eight officers who were on duty at the time of the arrest were arrested, acting inspector general of police, Gilbert Masengeli, said.

"Our preliminary investigation indicates that the escape was facilitated by insiders," he told reporters. "Any person found culpable will face the full force of law."

Khalusha was arrested at about 3 a.m. local time on July 15 in Soweto, east of Kenya's capital, Nairobi, outside of a club where he had gone to watch the European 2024 soccer championship final.

Khalusha was described as a "vampire" and "psychopath" after police discovered bodies at an abandoned quarry in Kenya's capital.

He allegedly told police that he confessed to killing 42 women over the past two years and had thrown the bodies into the quarry now used as a dumping spot, a little more than 300 feet from a home the alleged killer rented.

At least 10 sacks filled with body parts of victims believed to be women between the ages of 18 and 30 were removed from the location, according to Kenyan police, of which six bodies have so far been identified.

However, last month inside a Kenyan court, Khalusha's lawyer John Ndegwa told a judge that his client was allegedly tortured into a confession. On Friday, Khalusha was ordered to be held 30 more days while authorities wrapped-up investigations.

Kenyan police, who were tracking Khalusha's cell phone signal, contend that after he was arrested he had confessed "on interrogation," Amin said at the time, "to having lured, killed, and disposed of 42 female bodies at the dumping site," including his wife and another woman between 2022 and July 11 of this year.

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

This new escape of 13 prisoners arrived six months after Kevin Kangethe, a Kenyan man wanted in the U.S. for murder, escaped from another Nairobi police station in February minutes after officers let him out of his cell to speak with his lawyer, but was rearrested by authorities a few days later.

The breach has put Kenyan police under a renewed spotlight after anti-government demonstrations in the capital which left several Kenyan civilians dead and reports of tens of others missing.

Human rights organizations and Kenya's Independent Police Oversight Authority , a civilian watchdog body for police work, that point to , "widespread allegations of police involvement in unlawful arrests [and] abductions," have said they were investigating the quarry deaths Khalusha supposedly confessed to.