Kenya’s police on Monday said that they had arrested a suspected serial killer who they said confessed to killing 42 women in the past two years, a shocking development in a country wracked by political turmoil and a spate of violence against women.
The police arrested the man days after the dismembered bodies of nine women were found at an abandoned quarry used as a dumping site in a shantytown in Nairobi, the capital.
The man, identified as Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, confessed to having “lured, killed and disposed” of the women, including his wife, at the dumping site, according to a statement by Mohamed I. Amin, the director of the police department’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations. Mr. Khalusha confessed to having carried out the killings between 2022 and last Thursday, Mr. Amin said.
The police say that they are still investigating the motive behind the killings. The suspect is set to be arraigned in court on Tuesday.
When the bodies were first discovered, some people publicly speculated that they were those of people who had been detained or went missing during the anti-government protests.
Kenya’s independent police watchdog said that it was looking into whether there was “any police involvement in the deaths, or failure to act to prevent” the murders of the women.
“There are so many questions coming out of these women’s killings,” said Zaina Kombo, an anti-discrimination campaigner with the human rights organization Amnesty International in Kenya.
“People no longer trust the police,” Ms. Kombo said in a phone interview. “And that trust deficit makes it very hard for anything to happen, including investigations.”
Police officials said that the nine bodies were found after the relative of a missing woman said that she had dreamed that she had instructed them to search the dump site. The mutilated and dismembered bodies, bound in sacks, were pulled from the dump site starting last Friday, horrifying and outraging the nation. The victims were between the ages of 18 and 30 and their bodies were in various stages of decomposition, the police said.
On Monday, police officials said that they had traced the suspect after doing a forensic analysis of a mobile phone belonging to one of the victims. Once arrested, the police said, he led officers to a single-room rental about 100 meters from the dump site, where they found eight smartphones, two pairs of women’s underwear, a machete, a pink handbag, ID cards for six men and two women and other items.
The arrest comes just six months after at least 31 women were killed in Kenya in a single month, prompting nationwide protests. Activists then called on the authorities to seriously deal with the killing of women or girls because of their gender — also known as femicide — and to establish a specialized police unit to handle the issue.
Ms. Kombo, the campaigner with Amnesty International, said the police’s ability to find the suspected serial killer in just days shows “there is capacity.”
“It is just a lack of prioritization.”
