None of bodies recovered from Kware had bullet wounds

None of the bodies recovered from the Kware dump site in Mukuru slums had injuries that could be attributed to gunshots, either externally or from the examination of the bodies, Chief Government Pathologist Dr. Johansen Oduor said Wednesday.

Dr. Oduor mentioned that one of the bodies had head injuries while another had been strangled. So far, 13 bodies have been recovered from the site amid an ongoing search.

Among the nine body bags examined, four contained limbs—specifically lower limbs amputated from the knees downward, comprising two right legs and two left legs. “There was also a whole body of a female who we examined and found she had a head injury,” Oduor said.

Additionally, three body bags contained partial human remains, specifically female torsos from the waist to the knee. Another bag contained an upper trunk from the waist upward, with the cause of death determined to be strangulation. This brings the total count to nine bodies examined so far.

Dr. Oduor noted that the bodies exhibited various levels of decomposition, ranging from mild to severe, making it difficult to determine the cause of death for those that were severely decomposed. “For bodies which are severely decomposed, it becomes very difficult to assign a cause of death because of post-mortem artefacts where many tissues are lost due to decomposition,” he explained.

The bodies had been sawed off from the waist, which Oduor suggested could have occurred post-mortem. One of the female bodies was intact and not decomposed, revealing head injuries. Another body, consisting of only the upper trunk, showed clear marks of ligature on the neck, indicating strangulation.

X-rays of the head and other body parts have been submitted to radiologists for further analysis, which may extend the investigation process.

Police are still investigating the murders. Among the items recovered from the house of the prime suspect, Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, were a blood-stained hammer, a pair of pliers, two kitchen knives, four pairs of women’s shoes, and a gunny bag.

Detectives revisited Khalusha’s house on Wednesday, July 17, as part of the probe into the killings. They also recovered a dressing mirror with fingerprints, a mattress, a blood-stained pillow, and a red t-shirt. The team was accompanied by the suspect during their five-hour visit to the scene.

Additionally, they recovered sisal and manila ropes and a notebook with hospital receipts bearing the name of a woman. A team was sent to the hospital to confirm if the woman had been treated there.

Khalusha is the prime suspect in the gruesome murders of at least 42 women in Nairobi. He claimed to have met all the victims on the streets, some of whom were selling airtime in the area. He lured them to his house, where he raped and killed them.

Detectives concluded that Khalusha’s house was the primary crime scene, corroborated by the bloodstains found on the walls and floor, which he admitted were from some of the victims. In his confession recorded at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), Khalusha claimed he had killed ten women this year alone, with the latest victim being killed on July 11, a day before the bodies were discovered at the Kware dump site.

Khalusha allegedly strangled the victims, left their bodies on nylon paper in his house, then dismembered and dumped them at a site about 500 meters from his house. He admitted to sometimes using a hammer in the process. Born in Vihiga in 1991, Khalusha moved to Migori with his mother three years later after his father’s death.

Most of the victims were women from the slum where he lived. He told police he had killed more than 20 women in 2023 alone. Police are now working to document all the victims amid concerns that identification may be challenging.

Two more suspects have been arrested in connection with the serial murders.