Kenyan police said Monday they had arrested a suspected serial killer who had confessed to murdering 42 women including his wife before dumping their dismembered bodies in a Nairobi rubbish tip.
Since Friday, a total of nine butchered bodies trussed up in plastic bags have been pulled from the garbage site in the Mukuru slum area in the south of the capital, a gruesome discovery that has horrified the nation.
Acting Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja said the 33-year-old suspect, named as Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, was arrested at around 3:00 am (0000 GMT) on Monday near a Nairobi bar where he had been watching the Euro 2024 football finals.
"We are dealing with a serial killer, a psychopathic serial killer who has no respect for human life," the head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Mohamed Amin told reporters.
"We are dealing with a vampire, a psychopath."
Amin said Khalusha claimed the murders took place between 2022 and July 11 this year.
"The suspect confessed to have lured, killed and disposed of 42 female bodies at the dumping site," he added.
"Unfortunately, and this is very sad, the suspect alleged that his first victim was his wife... who he strangled to death, before dismembering her body and disposing it at the same site," he said.
- 'Luring another victim' -
The suspect was tracked down after analysis of one of the victim's mobile phones, Amin said, in a joint operation by the DCI and the National Police Service.
As officers swooped, "he was in the process of luring another victim", Amin said.
Khalusha had confessed to having had "carnal knowledge" with some of his victims, he added.
Officers searched his one-room house, located just 100 metres (yards) from where the bodies were found, discovering a machete, nylon sacks, rope, a pair of industrial rubber gloves -- as well as a "pink female handbag", and "two female panties".
The areas will remain "active crime scenes," Amin said, promising a thorough investigation.
Nine mutilated and dismembered bodies have so far been retrieved from the crime scene, according to police, with Kanja saying autopsies on the victims would be carried out on Monday. Eight have been confirmed to be female.
A second suspect who was caught with a phone belonging to one of the victims has also been arrested, Amin said.
- Police under spotlight -
The discoveries have thrown yet another spotlight on Kenyan police and added more pressure on President William Ruto, who is struggling to contain a crisis over widespread anti-government protests that saw dozens of demonstrators killed.
Kenya's police watchdog, the Independent Police Oversight Authority (IPOA), had said on Friday it was looking into whether there was any police involvement in the bodies found in the tip, noting that the dumpsite was just 100 metres from a police station.
IPOA was also investigating if there had been a "failure to act to prevent" the grisly killings.
Kanja, in office for only a week following the fallout over last month's protest bloodshed, told reporters last week that all officers at the police post located near the rubbish tip had been transferred.
Trouble briefly erupted when locals tried to take a bag they had hauled out of the pit to the police station, but were met with volleys of tear gas, an AFP journalist at the scene said.
Kenyan police are often accused by rights groups of using excessive force and carrying out unlawful killings or running hit squads, but few have faced justice.
By Rose Troup Buchanan
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