A ‘vampire serial killer’ who police said confessed to killing 42 women has escaped from custody in Kenya in a mass jail break.
Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, was arrested in July after ten bodies and several body parts wrapped in plastic sacks were found in a rubbish dump in a Nairobi slum.
Jumaisi was being held at a police station in the capital when he escaped along with 12 other inmates who were all Eritrean nationals, officials have said.
The prisoners fled by cutting through the wire mesh roof and scaling the perimeter wall – an escape which national police chief Gilbert Masengeli said was ‘aided by insiders’.
He told reporters that eight officers on duty at the time have been suspended and ‘placed in custody’, adding that the matter was being investigated by the Internal Affairs Unit.
Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, is escorted to the Kiambu law Courts in Kiambu, Kenya, on July 16
Ten bodies are retrieved from a landfill in a slum in Nairobi on July 13
Crime detective unit officers work at the scene at Gigiri police station after the escape
Police said they discovered the breakout when officers made a routine visit to the cells at around 5 am to serve the prisoners breakfast.
‘On opening the cell door, they discovered that 13 prisoners had escaped by cutting the wire mesh in the basking bay,’ police said, referring to a covered courtyard area in the station where detainees could get access to fresh air.
The 12 Eritreans had been arrested for being in Kenya illegally, police said, adding that four others who did not escape were helping with the investigation.
The police station is located in the upmarket Nairobi district of Gigiri, home to the regional headquarters of the United Nations and numerous embassies.
It is the second time in barely six months that a suspect in a high-profile case has escaped from custody in Kenya.
Kenyan national Kevin Kangethe, who is accused of murdering his girlfriend in the United States last year and leaving her body in an airport car park, fled a police station in February before being caught about a week later.
Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, was arrested in July after ten bodies and several body parts wrapped in plastic sacks were found in a rubbish dump in a Nairobi slum
Officials remove the bodies that were found in plastic sacks from the rubbish dump on July 13
Gilbert Masengeli briefs the media at the Gigiri police station following the escape
Crowds gather following the gruesome discovery in the Nairobi slum of Mukuru
A police officer enters the Gigiri police station, after the prime suspect in the Kware murder case Collins Jumaisi escaped from custody
Jumaisi had appeared in a court in Nairobi on Friday, when the magistrate ordered him to be held for a further 30 days to enable police to complete their investigations.
The head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Mohamed Amin, said after his arrest on July 15 that Jumaisi had confessed to murdering 42 women over a two-year period from 2022, with his wife his first victim.
‘We are dealing with a vampire, a psychopath,’ Amin said at the time.
Jumaisi said he had been molested and tortured, his lawyer told AFP last month.
A spokesman for the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) said in a statement when the bodies were found: ‘We want to assure the public that our investigations will be thorough and shall cover a wide range of areas, including but not limited to the possible activities of cultists and serial killings.
Onlookers gather at the dumpsite where bodies were found in the landfill in Mukuru slum, Nairobi, in July
Tensions ran high at the Mukuru site, with local media reports that police fired into the air to try to disperse an angry crowd
Locals expressed concern after the more bodies continued to be discovered from the rubbish
Some people on social media have described them as victims of femicide
Officials inspect the bodies while being watched from a crowd of locals
‘We appeal to the members of the public to remain calm and give our detectives a chance to deliver justice to the victims of this horrendous scene.’
The identities of the dead or how long the bodies had been at the quarry are not yet known.
The grisly find shocked Kenyans, already reeling from the so-called Shakahola forest massacre after the discovery of more than 400 bodies in mass graves near the Indian Ocean coast.
A Kenyan cult leader is accused of inciting his followers to starve themselves to death in order to prepare for the end of the world and ‘meet Jesus’.
He faces numerous charges including terrorism, murder and child cruelty along with dozens of co-defendants.