Kenyan suspect says he killed 19 people but that target was 100; police find 4 bodies so far
By To-js, APThursday, June 10, 2010
Kenyan suspect: I killed 19 but target was 100
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyan police Thursday said a man who they had initially arrested on kidnapping charges has confessed to killing 19 people in three years and claimed his target was to slay 100.
Richard Katola, a top police official said in the last three days the suspect, Richard Onyancha, has led police to several murder scenes, four where police recovered bodily remains of his alleged victims.
Onyancha was arrested last week after police tracked him down through a mobile phone he was using to send ransom demands to the family of a 9-year-old kidnap victim.
Police said Onyancha has confessed to killing the boy and 18 other people.
National police spokesman Charles Owino said Onyancha continued to send text messages with ransom demands to the family of the 9-year-old boy a month after killing him.
“He said he broke the boy’s neck put his body in a sack and threw it into a bush,” Owino said.
Police recovered the boy’s remains from a bush after Onyancha led them to the scene.
The 32-year-old suspect, who was a former guard with an international security company, led police on Tuesday to a swampy area near lake Naivasha, about 50 miles (75 kilometers) northwest of Kenya’s capital Nairobi, to look for the bodies of two more alleged victims, Owino said. Police have yet to recover remains.
On Wednesday, Onyancha led the officers to several lodgings in the outskirts of the city where he claimed to have killed four prostitutes and the left the bodies in the rooms. Later that afternoon he led police to other lodgings in a different town where he claimed to have killed one woman, Owino said.
“According to him women were his main targets and he wanted to kill 100,” Owino said.
On Thursday, police visited another alleged murder scene.
Owino said police are trying to draw a connection between Onyancha’s claims and unresolved murder cases in the places he says he committed the crimes.
