The mother of the first victim of Kware suspected serial killer revealed she last spoke to her slain daughter in 2021.
Police had said the suspect confessed that his first victim was his wife Imelda Judith Khalenya whom he strangled to death before dismembering her body and disposing it at the same site.
Khalenya’s mother Josephine Adisa walked to the Directorate of Criminal Investigation (DCI) headquarters on Monday evening on getting news her daughter was the first victim.
The distraught mother said she lost contact with her deceased daughter in 2021 after she dropped out of school left their home in Moi’s Bridge, Uasin Gishu County.
She said the girl would contact her friends on social media.
Adisa said the deceased daughter never communicated since 2022.
“She would use her social media account to contact her friends and family. But her accounts went dead in mid-2022 and no one ever heard from her again,” she said as she fought back tears at a room at the DCI.
The woman is a domestic worker in Nairobi’s Fedha estate, which is not far from where her daughter was probably killed and dumped.
She said she received a call from her younger brother informing her that her daughter had been murdered and was among the victims of the Kware killings.
She was by then she was not aware of the death of her daughter.
“My brother told me that Imelda was using another name, Akinyi, and that she had been brutally murdered. I stopped what I was doing and started to inquire on the same,” she said.
Adisa said her other brother also informed her of the same sad news.
She said when she arrived at Kware Police Station, she received a call with a request for her to rush to the DCI headquarters and record her statement.
Adisa told journalists that someone once called her in 2021 saying he was a pastor and that he was married to her daughter.
Adisa said because she was busy then, she never met this man and she is not sure whether he is the same Collins Jomaisa who was arrested on suspicion of being the prime suspect behind the macabre murders.
“When I heard of her death, the pain was incomparable to her wrongs. She is still my dear child,” she said.
This came as the prime suspect in the murder continued to record his confession.
He has been identified as Collins Jomaisi Khalisia, 33.
The suspect is said to have so far killed 42 women since he started his serial killings in 2022, police said.
Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) Director Mohamed Amin confirmed on Monday that the suspect revealed he killed 42 women between 2022 and July 11, 2024, when he murdered his last victim.
Amin said that Khalisia said his first victim was his wife whom he strangled to death, and dismembered before dumping her remains in the dumpsite.
This was after they disagreed on how she ran down businesses he had opened for her.
“Upon interrogation, the suspect confessed to have lured, killed and disposed 42 female bodies at the dumpsite all murdered between 2022 and as recent of July 11, 2024,” said Amin.
“The suspect alleged that his first victim was his wife Imelda Judith Khalenya whom he strangled to death before dismembering her body and disposing it at the same site. From the interrogation, all his victims have been murdered in the same style.”
Amin added that Khalisia was arrested Monday morning in Kayole after officers from the DCI and the National Police Service (NPS) conducted a joint operation.
“He was arrested outside a club where he had gone to watch the Euro 2024 football finals,” said Amin.
“His arrest followed thorough forensic analysis of a mobile phone belonging to one of the victims identified as Josephine Owino where some mobile money transactions were made when she went missing.”
Shortly after his arrest, he led officers to his single-room house in Kware ares, about 500 metres from the dumpsite, where several crucial items were recovered upon search.
“A search led to the recovery of 24 Airtel SIM card holders, 8 smartphones, a laptop, a hard drive, two flash drives, a machete believed to be used to dismember the victims, 12 nylon sacks similar to the ones used in stuffing the bodies, a pair of industrial rubber gloves, six ID cards for men and two for women,” said Amin.
Other items included: “one pink female handbag, two female panties, five rolls of cannabis, four huge clear cellotapes some of which recovered at the scene, a reflector jacket, two title deeds, two notebooks and assorted documents.”
The suspect’s house and dumping site will remain active crime scenes as police officers continue probing the incident.
Police say they are still trying to establish how and where he killed the victims and managed to deliver the bodies to the dumpsite.
“From the look of things it is crystalizing that we are dealing with a psychopathic serial killer who has no respect for human life,” Amin noted.
As of Monday, a total of 10 bodies had been recovered from the dumpsite awaiting postmortem at the Nairobi Funeral Home, formerly City Mortuary.
The autopsy on the bodies recovered from the dumpsite was postponed to Wednesday over among others the planned protests in the city.
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