Police were unable to explain how Masten Wanjala who confessed to murdering 13 people after sexually assaulting them and drinking their blood managed to escape from custody just hours before he was to be charged in court.
Three officers on duty when a suspected serial killer Wanjala escaped from a city police station have been detained. Wanjala who was arrested in July after a five-year killing spree escaped from his cell at the Jogoo Road Police Station on Tuesday night without breaking any wall, window or door.
He had been remanded at the station for 30 days, pending a court appearance yesterday morning to answer to murder charges.
However, during the 6am mandatory roll call for all people being held in the cells, the duty officer discovered Wanjala was absent.
The window to his cell was not broken and neither was the door, which can only be locked or opened from the outside. The cells at police stations are located behind the reporting desk, meaning no one can enter or leave without the duty officer noticing.
The puzzle awaiting unravelling is now is whether someone helped him to escape, or took him out of police custody for other purposes.
A police report about the incident reads: “It was reported by No 73739 PC Alphonse Oderekong and No 106275 PC Lizzy Rimba, report office and cell sentry respectively, that one prisoner, namely Masten Milimo Wanjala, who was held for the offence of murder and was pending to take plea today, was not in the cells”
“The officers noticed when they were taking over the report office and cell sentry duties,” reads an OB report.
Wanjala made headlines in September after he admitted to killing 13 people, mostly children, in Nairobi and Bungoma counties, over a span of five years.
His confession came after Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officers tracked him to Kitengela town, Kajiado County. His cover was blown after he abducted two children from Majengo slum in Nairobi and attempted to solicit a ransom from their parents.
While in custody, the suspect allegedly confessed to police that he had been killing children for five years. He told the police that he sucked the blood of his first victim, Purity Maweu, 12 who was kidnapped from Kiima Kimwe in Machakos County.