Serial rapists and murderers leave trail of graves and tears

On a sultry Nyandarua night in November last year, Mary Macharia, a 56-year-old social worker at the Nyandarua County government, was waylaid on her way home and killed.

A spate of ghastly murders followed soon after, stunning the foothills of the Aberdares and charging the term “femicide” with a dreadful new meaning.

The killer employed an identical, tactical pattern. He dug tunnels into the victims’ homes for access and, once inside, raped the female victims before hacking them.

No one knows how he managed to dig tunnels without detection and why his victims never raised alarm — or, if they did, why neigbours would only be awakened by screams the next morning by an early visitor to the women’s homes.

One murder led to another. After the 19th victim, agitated residents staged protests, forcing Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i to visit the area and reshuffle security officials.

THREE CHILDREN

A week after Dr Matiang’i returned to Nairobi, Phyllis Wanjiru and her three children were awakened by a brutal visitor in the dead of night. He had dug a hole into their house.

Phyllis knew all too well what was about to happen, so she let out a loud scream that startled the small suburban settlement of Nyakariang’a in Ol-Joro Orok.

The intruder fled, but Phyllis thought she had seen him before. In fact, the believed she knew him very well.

The man who had dug a tunnel into her house at 3am was Jassan Kariuki, a “quiet and shy” neighbour.

And so, when dawn cracked, she, accompanied by neighbours, reported the incident to the police, who promptly arrested Kariuki.

Detectives recovered a blood-spattered machete, a hoe believed to have been used to dig the tunnels, six mobile phones and tens of sim cards. He was remanded awaiting his plea on July 13.

The Nyandarua murders, however, are just some among many that have shocked the country in recent days. Most of them also seem to have been perpetrated by serial killers seeking some sort of an abnormal psychological gratification.

SERIAL KILLER

In Moi’s Bridge, Uasin Gishu, a serial killer has in recent days murdered four young girls, dismembered their bodies and dumped them in thickets within a 500-metre radius.

Police said they were investigating the cases separately, even though the pattern of killings points to a serial murderer targeting girls aged between 10 and 13. All the girls came from single-mother homes and were attacked.

In Nairobi, a man is in police custody after he was found with the dismembered body of a woman. Police believe he has killed before and are questioning him.

At the Nyandarua home of Jassan Kariuki, the man arrested over links to the death of 19 people, his mother Ann Njeri took the news of his arrest with a mixture of anger and celebratory remarks. Although she declined to discuss her son’s alleged criminality, she said he is an adult who chose his own path.

“We rarely knew of his whereabouts, but we had received many complaints about his criminal activities from neighbours,” she said.

Neighbours, like the police, suspect he has been behind the series of murders in the area as the incidents escalated after he left prison last year after conviction for robbery.

He lived alone in a single-room timber house, did not talk to his neighbours and rarely socialised with anyone. Nyandarua police admit they are dealing with a polished suspect and have invited a team of experts from Directorate of Criminal Investigations in Nairobi to help unravel the mysterious killings.

Psychiatrists link the chain of murders targeting women and children to obsessive behaviours fuelled by macabre desires or just attention-seeking.

ARRESTED

Dr Lucy Boretor, a psychiatrist at JM Memorial Hospital in Nyandarua, says some of the crimes would have been prevented had the community and the suspect’s relatives taken action earlier.

“Generally, people do not become murderers overnight; there must be a motivation. Also, most criminals exhibit strange signs at a very early stage in their childhood, and parents need to take note and act on them.”

Kariuki is said to have left home to live with an uncle some years back, but shortly afterwards returned home and was arrested for a break-in and attempted theft. He was jailed for one-and-a-half years.

“He had dug a tunnel to an old woman’s house but she raised the alarm. We thought he had reformed when he left prison early last year,” said a neighbour.

Jane Macharia, another victim, believes prison exposed Kariuki to the ways of other dangerous criminals.

“We grew together in this village, I knew him as a child. I first suspected he was behind the killings after he dug a tunnel and entered the house of Mary Macharia, an old woman. My presence in the house surprised him. He was ready to attack but got scared when I shouted his name and challenged him to a fight,” said Jane.

He escaped, but not before threatening them with murder if they dared reveal his name and the incident to anyone.

The dead tell no tales, but serial killers’ victims offer tonnes of information. Dr Eunice Githae, a lecturer at Kenyatta University’s psychology department, cites the cases at Moi’s Bridge and the infamous Kisumu serial killer Harrison Okumu as mostly crimes of control and power, more than about sexual offending.

Okumu would lure women to his house and have his way with them before killing them and disposing of their remains, as told by one woman who nearly became part of the story.

Okumu also kept his victims’ underwear as souvenirs. He had killed at least five women by the time he was arrested in 2013. He died in jail in 2015.

MENTAL STATE

The deaths happen in secret, and not all killers explain why, but their atrocious crimes leave dots to be connected to tell the story of their mental state.

Most serial killers are driven by an urge to assert their power over others, though their circumstances usually don’t allow them to wield power in a socially acceptable manner, explains Dr Githae.

“So they choose weaker people upon whom their power will be felt. This is compounded by the likelihood of an antisocial personality disorder that lacks empathy and remorse. They feel no guilt.”

In the US state of Texas, a Kenyan man named Hillary Chemirmir is accused of killing at least 22 elderly women in care homes. Dr Githae notes that such behaviour is borne out of a serial killer’s search for thrill.

“They can go to any lengths. If they feel successful after killing the first victim, such an event is stored in their mind and they will crave for it,” she says.

Kenyans will remember Philip Onyancha, the man who confessed to having killed 19 women and children and how he once cited the prompting of evil spirits to commit the heinous acts.

In the minds of such killers, Dr Githae says, they always convince themselves that they are okay. But she says most of them might be bearing scars of trauma.

“They could be victims of hurt themselves. And, as we say, hurt people hurt people.”