Ripper on the Run

Listen to Today's Edition:

Kenyan authorities launched a manhunt on Tuesday after a man accused of killing dozens of women escaped from a police cell in the nation’s capital Nairobi, setting off outrage across the country, Al Jazeera reported.

After he was arrested in July, Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, confessed to killing 42 women over the past two years, starting with his wife in 2022, the police said. He broke out of Nairobi’s Gigiri police station by cutting through wire mesh and scaling the perimeter walls.

Officers realized on Tuesday morning that Khalusha and 12 inmates had escaped overnight. Nairobi police said the suspect was “aided by insiders” and launched a probe into its own forces.

The news came as a shock to a nation already traumatized by the gruesome discovery of a dozen females earlier this summer in a quarry in the Nairobi slum of Mukuru. Some of the bodies were found in plastic bags, tied with ropes.

Serial killers are rare in Kenya.

Khalusha reportedly admitted he dismembered women and threw their bodies into the quarry, after he was found with phone cards belonging to the victims. Police described him as a “vampire, a psychopath.”

“We are dealing with a serial killer, a psychopathic serial killer who has no respect for human life,” said Mohamed Amin, head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

The case highlighted the issue of violence against women in Kenya, the Washington Post wrote. It also sparked more scrutiny of the police, which has faced criticism since demonstrations across Kenya last month were met with harsh state repression.

Kenya’s police oversight authority said it launched an investigation into possible police failings or involvement in the killings.

“In this country, we do not have justice as women and as a people,” activist Millian Nyamoita told the Post.