On the morning of Friday, October 15, 2021, villagers in Mukhweya, in Bungoma County in western Kenya, recognized a young man walking through the area. Schoolchildren on their way to class were among the first to know him, the local chief later said, and they ran to tell the police. Within a short time a crowd had gathered. The man tried to hide, but the crowd reached him first and beat him to death before officers arrived.
He was Masten Milimu Wanjala, 20. Three months earlier detectives in Nairobi had arrested him over the deaths of two schoolboys, and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) had told the country that he confessed to killing at least 10 children over about five years. He had been held in police cells under a court order while investigators traveled with him to the places he named. On the night of October 12 to 13 he walked out of Jogoo Road police station in Nairobi, hours before he was due in court to take a plea. Two days later, more than 400 kilometers away, he was dead.
He was never charged with murder, never entered a plea and was never convicted of anything. The case against him lived only in police statements, in the court filings that kept him in custody, and in what investigators, families and villagers told reporters. Those claims were never tested before a judge. The only criminal case his escape produced was against the three police officers who were on duty that night.
Most of what is known about his early life comes from his relatives. His parents separated before he was born, according to the Nation, and his mother later married and settled in Machakos County, east of Nairobi. He grew up with her there. His father lived in Bungoma County, in a village in Kabuchai constituency, and told the Nation that he did not know his son well. Wanjala was brought to his father as a teenager, at 17 by one account and at 18 by another.
His father told Kenyans.co.ke in July 2021 that he had dealt with his son only in his teenage years. He said he paid for the boy's schooling and enrolled him in a school, but that his son did not stay long and dropped out in Class Six. In a later interview with the Nation, after his son's death, he said he had tried to enroll him in school and that the boy refused because all he wanted was to play football.
Football runs through every account of him. His father described a son who loved the game and kept to himself. A local chief in Bungoma told the Nation he had seemed a good boy who loved football. Neighbors in Bungoma described him as quiet and polite and said he played football with the boys of the area, and a neighbor told Kenyans.co.ke that they used to play together and that nobody would have suspected him. According to police, that was also how he approached the children he was accused of killing: The Star and the Associated Press reported that he often presented himself as a football coach.
One episode from before his arrest is on record. His stepsister, the Nation reported in 2021, had told people the year before that he was suspected of killing a child in Machakos, after which he fled to his father's home in Bungoma and then disappeared. No charge is known to have followed.
The case that led to his arrest began in Majengo, in Nairobi. On June 30, 2021, police received a report that Charles Opindo Bala, 13, a Class Six pupil at Sagaret Primary School, was missing. On July 8, a second report came in for Junior Mutuku Musyoki, 12, a pupil at the same school, according to an affidavit sworn by a DCI corporal from Shauri Moyo and described by The Star. Kenyans.co.ke gave the date Junior disappeared as July 7.
The families then received telephone calls demanding money for the boys' release. Kenyans.co.ke reported that Junior's mother was asked for 50,000 shillings and Charles's father for 30,000 shillings. Police traced the calls to Kitengela, a town in Kajiado County just south of Nairobi, and arrested Wanjala there, according to the affidavit. A search turned up a mobile phone and a SIM card that police said had been used to make the ransom demands.
The DCI announced the arrest on July 14, 2021, describing him as a serial killer behind the murders of "at least ten innocent children", according to the Associated Press. The affidavit described by The Star said he was arrested on the Tuesday before he was taken to court. The Nation also put the arrest in Kitengela.
By then the two boys were dead. Police said Wanjala led detectives to the remains of both in Nairobi. Both families later spoke to reporters. Charles's father told The Washington Post in October 2021 that the family did not have closure. Junior's mother told the same newspaper: "We have forgiven him, because what else can we do?"
The day after the DCI announcement, Wanjala was brought before Chief Magistrate Heston Nyagah at the Makadara law courts in Nairobi. He was not charged. Instead the DCI applied, under a miscellaneous application, for permission to hold him while it investigated. Police told the court that he had confessed to kidnapping and killing 10 more children in Machakos, Mlolongo, Kitengela, Nairobi and Kakamega, and that they needed time to travel to those places, recover bodies and hold identification parades. The magistrate allowed them to keep him for 30 days and set a mention date of August 16, The Star reported. Citizen Digital reported that he was being held at Buruburu police station and that the DCI's homicide unit had taken over the case.
What police said he told them was reported widely over the following weeks. According to the police account given to Citizen Digital, the killings spanned about five years, and he was 16 when he killed his first victim, a 12-year-old girl taken in Machakos. The Nation named her as Purity Maweu, of Kiima Kimwe in Machakos County. Police told Citizen Digital that he had killed a 13-year-old boy in Kimilili, in Bungoma County, in 2019, the case that had set off protests in the village of Kamukuywa. They also said he had killed two boys from Kitengela and Mlolongo whose remains had not been found.
The Star later reported, citing police, that all but one of the alleged victims were boys and that most were strangled.
Police also described him in lurid terms that were repeated in Kenya and abroad, The Washington Post reported, and they made claims about what he had done to the children that were never examined in any court. The Nation called him a "self-confessed child killer" in its headlines. At least one psychologist questioned the rush. Dr. Gathoni Mbugua, a clinical psychologist at Chiromo Hospital in Nairobi, told the Nation that he needed a proper assessment before anyone could make a diagnosis, and that it was unfair to label him a serial killer before that had been done.
By September 2021, when his statements made headlines again, according to the Nation, the investigation had moved to Bungoma County, where Wanjala's father lived. A DCI homicide team led by Martin Nyuguto spent a day there with him, according to Citizen Digital and the Nation, visiting places where he said he had left some of his victims. The Nation reported that he told detectives he had acted alone, over six years and across more than four counties, Bungoma, Machakos, Nairobi and Kajiado, and that he kept a calendar on which he marked each killing.
The visit reopened a case that had divided a village. In February 2019 Emmanuel Wafula, a Standard Two pupil at Kingstar Academy, had been killed in Sosio village in the Kamukuywa area of Kimilili constituency. The Nation and Citizen Digital gave his age as 9; a later Nation report gave it as 13. Residents blamed an elderly neighbor and set fire to his homestead. The man was arrested on suspicion of the killing and released on bond. He died at Webuye County Hospital before any trial, and his widow told reporters he had died of the stress of being accused. Detectives later said he could not have been responsible, Citizen Digital reported. Emmanuel's mother told the Nation that the family had believed the old man had killed her son. "My son was very jovial," she said, and she asked police to act quickly against Wanjala.
The Nation also reported that detectives were due to search near Chwele, in Bungoma County, in the case of Augustine Mukhisa, 13. It listed other children police linked to him, known publicly only by first name: Austin, 12, from Kitengela, and Josee, 13, from Mlolongo, whose remains had not been recovered; a boy named Musa, whose relatives identified him and buried him; and two boys from Nairobi's Eastleigh and Mathare areas whom, the Nation reported, he admitted killing "last December". The Washington Post quoted the mother of another boy, Brian Omondi, 13, after Wanjala's death: "When I heard he was dead, I felt so relieved."
The count was never settled. Police and the press put the number of killings he admitted at 10, 12 and 13. The Associated Press reported in October that police said he had confessed to killing 12 children in Nairobi, Machakos and Bungoma counties, and that five bodies had been recovered. Kenyans.co.ke reported that he faced 13 murder counts. The Star said he was expected to plead to five of 14 cases. The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said he was to be charged with the murders of three children, while investigations into others went on. The Nation noted in October that the DCI and the prosecutors had disagreed over the number.
He stayed in police custody long after the first 30 days ran out. By October he had been held at Jogoo Road police station for 91 days while awaiting murder charges, the Nation reported; The Star put his time at the station at almost a month. The lawyer for the officers later charged over his escape went further, telling a court that Wanjala had been held at the station since June, which does not fit the July arrest date that police gave, and that he had come to know the station's workings so well he was "more like a police officer".
His plea was set for Wednesday, October 13, 2021.
On the night of Tuesday, October 12, police in Nairobi made a large number of arrests of people breaking the Covid-19 curfew and other public health rules. Jogoo Road police station has two cells, one for men and one for women, the Nation reported, and Wanjala was not held alone. Because the holding areas were full, Citizen Digital reported, citing a police source, the curfew offenders were put in the cell with him. Kenyans.co.ke, relaying a Citizen TV report, said that ten curfew offenders and two other suspects had been added that night, bringing the number in the cell to twenty, and that the new arrivals were asked to pay money for their release. At dawn the petty offenders were let go. In the confusion, Citizen Digital reported, Wanjala mixed with them and left.
Nobody noticed for hours. The 6 a.m. roll call found him missing, according to the Nation; a police report quoted by Citizen Digital put the discovery at 7 a.m. on Wednesday, during the handover of the report office and cell sentry duties. The deputy officer commanding the station informed the divisional commander at Buruburu and raised the alarm, and the area was searched. The cell door and window were not broken, the Nation reported, and the door could only be opened from outside. The cells sat behind the report desk, so that no one could pass without being seen. The officers said they did not know how he got out, Kenyans.co.ke reported, since the cells showed no sign of having been broken.
The Nation described the open question plainly: had someone helped him walk out, or had he been taken out of custody for some other purpose? The National Police Service launched a nationwide search and classified him as armed and dangerous. The Director of Public Prosecutions said he had been due to face charges that day for the murders of three children, and summoned the commander of Jogoo Road station and the divisional criminal investigations officer at Buruburu to report on what had happened, the Nation reported. Asked how the escape could have occurred, the national police spokesman, Bruno Shioso, told The Washington Post: "Things just happen."
The officers on duty gave their own account. Through their lawyer, Danstan Omari, they told a court that the station had lost power that night and was dark when the shifts changed, People Daily and the Nation reported. Investigators told People Daily that the escape appeared well planned, because he had not forced his way out, and that he might have been released along with the petty offenders as if he were one of them.
Mike Sonko, the former governor of Nairobi, offered a reward of 200,000 shillings on October 13 for information leading to Wanjala's arrest, Kenyans.co.ke reported. The member of parliament for Kamukunji, Yusuf Hassan, backed the reward and said the officers at the station should be held accountable.
How Wanjala crossed the country is known only from what he and others are reported to have said. According to The Star, he told the people who caught him that he had passed himself off as a petty offender, given the officers the money he had, and walked out on the Tuesday night. Police who spoke to the crowd said he had then hitched a ride on a lorry to Bungoma, The Star reported. Citizen Digital and Kenyans.co.ke also reported that he traveled west on a truck or trailer to Kabuchai, his father's home area. Residents later told reporters that he had been seen in the area before the day he died, and his father, in November, asked police to explain reports that he had been seen at a local market.
Kenyans.co.ke reported that local people recognized him while he was playing football on Thursday, October 14. The Associated Press, citing police, said people identified him after he played in a football match with residents and that some of them followed him. On the Friday morning schoolchildren saw him and recognized him, the area chief, Boniface Ndiera, told Citizen Digital, and they ran to the police. A resident telephoned the chief. Wanjala ran and tried to hide, the chief said, but a crowd broke in and pulled him out, and within moments he was dead. The Nation reported that motorcycle taxi riders had spotted him at about 6 a.m. and followed him. Cornelius Nyaribai, the area's assistant county commissioner, confirmed the death to the Associated Press.
The DCI commented on his death on Twitter: "the law of the jungle as applied by irate villagers prevailed", in the wording reported by the Nation. The police spokesman described the killing as mob justice. "Police can't be everywhere," Shioso told The Washington Post. The Bungoma county commissioner, Samuel Kimiti, urged residents to report suspects to the police rather than kill them, the Nation reported. Mike Sonko said he would give his 200,000-shilling reward to the young men who had killed Wanjala, saying they had done a good job, according to Kenyans.co.ke.
Homicide detectives carried out a post-mortem examination on Wednesday, October 20, Kenyans.co.ke reported; the family did not attend. The Nation reported that detectives led by Nyuguto had flown the body to Nairobi. The results have never been made public.
His father's response shifted over the following weeks. He told reporters he was surprised by the escape and that he had not seen his son. Speaking to NTV, he apologized to the families of the children his son was said to have killed, and said he was heartbroken but ready to bury him, The Washington Post reported. He told the Nation that his son had been killed "like a dog", that he had tried to walk to the place where it happened but was overcome and turned back, and he asked the government to help him bury his son. He suggested his son had been drawn into a cult as a child.
Other relatives took a harder line. On October 24, kin who spoke anonymously to a local outlet said that burying him at the family home in Bungoma would bring misfortune on the family and the clan, Kenyans.co.ke reported. "We are afraid that if we bury him, we, as a clan, might be perceived as killers," one said. They disowned him, turned down a request from the authorities to give DNA samples and bury him, and said he should have been tried in court so that the families of the children could have justice. An assistant chief at Mukhweya, Abiud Musungu, confirmed that the authorities had asked the family to take a DNA test and bury him.
By November 10, 2021, his father told Kenyans.co.ke that he was not sure the man killed in Mukhweya was his son. Police had never asked him to identify the body, he said, and had examined it without involving him. "I have not confirmed if Masten is dead," he said. "I can only make plans if I am sure that he is dead." He said he would not bury him until the police issued a full statement, and he wanted the government to pay for the burial and the rituals. Where, or whether, he was buried has never been made public.
Three officers who had been on duty were arrested after the escape by colleagues from the Nairobi regional criminal investigations office: an inspector who was the station's duty officer and two constables. Citizen Digital reported that they faced charges of aiding escape from lawful custody and neglect of official duty, under sections 124 and 128 of Kenya's Penal Code.
On October 15, the day Wanjala died, the prosecution asked a magistrate at the Milimani law courts in Nairobi, Jane Kamau, to let police hold the three for 14 days while they investigated. She refused and released each on cash bail of 100,000 shillings, ordering them to report to the investigating officer every morning for seven days. The escape, she said, "brings into question the sincerity of the officers", and she urged police to move quickly and to involve the Independent Policing Oversight Authority, the Nation reported.
A week later, on October 22, the three were charged before Senior Principal Magistrate Bernard Ochoi with two counts: aiding a remandee to escape lawful custody, and neglecting to prevent his escape on the night of October 12 to 13, 2021, at Jogoo Road police station. They denied both. The state again asked to hold them for 14 days, and the court instead released them on a bond of 300,000 shillings or cash bail of 150,000 shillings, Kenyans.co.ke reported. Agence France-Presse, in a report carried by Africanews, said the next hearing was set for November 4. Their lawyer, Omari, said the officers would object to the case because the man they were accused of helping had been killed, and argued that the matter should have been dealt with administratively, the Nation reported.
The case moved slowly. At one hearing before Magistrate Robinson Ondieki, reported by People Daily, the defense objected to a prosecution witness who said he had served food to Wanjala and other suspects at the station on the day in question, arguing that the witness was unsure of the year; the magistrate stood the witness down while he considered the objection. On September 26, 2024, The Standard reported that Senior Principal Magistrate Robison Ondieki, as the paper spelled his name, had ruled that the prosecution "has proved a prima facie case against the three accused persons" and that they had wilfully neglected their duty to prevent Wanjala's escape on the night of October 12 and 13, 2021. He put them on their defense. In evidence, the officers had said the blackout kept them from watching the suspects, and their lawyer said they had counted the suspects by the light of a phone. No verdict had been reported by then.
Nothing police said about Masten Wanjala was tested in a court. The detention hearings in July 2021 were applications to hold him while police investigated, not trials, and he never took a plea. The figures police gave for the number of children he killed ranged from 10 to 13, and the prosecutors' office said in October that it was ready to charge him with three. The Nation, in its report on the escape, said the disagreement between the DCI and the prosecutors over the number had undermined the case, and that the families of the children might now never see justice. One of its reports described most of the victims as young girls, while The Star, citing police, said all but one were boys.
His age is also uncertain. Most reports in July and October 2021 gave it as 20; one Star report on the day of his death gave 25. The police account that he was 16 at the time of the first killing in Machakos rests on his own statements to investigators.
The circumstances of the escape remain contested. The officers on duty blamed a power cut; reports relaying police sources said he had mixed with curfew offenders who were asked to pay for their release; The Star reported that he told the crowd in Mukhweya he had paid the officers. None of these accounts had been found true or false in the officers' trial by September 2024.
His death, too, left questions that have never been answered. His father said in November 2021 that he had not been asked to identify the body and did not know who had confirmed the death. The results of the post-mortem examination have never been published.
The man arrested in 2019 over Emmanuel Wafula's death died before he was tried. Detectives later said he could not have been responsible, Citizen Digital reported, and residents in Bungoma called for compensation for his family, whose property had been burned.
Birth date unknown: Masten Milimu Wanjala is born to parents who separated before his birth, and grows up with his mother in Machakos County.
Year unknown: police later say he killed his first victim, Purity Maweu, 12, in Machakos County, when he was 16.
February 2019: Emmanuel Wafula is killed in Kimilili, Bungoma County; residents blame and burn the home of an elderly neighbor, who is arrested and later dies on bond.
June 30, 2021: Charles Opindo Bala, 13, is reported missing in Majengo, Nairobi.
July 7 or 8, 2021: Junior Mutuku Musyoki, 12, goes missing; his family, like Charles's, receives ransom demands.
July 2021: Wanjala is arrested in Kitengela, Kajiado County; the DCI announces the arrest on July 14 and says he confessed to killing at least 10 children.
July 15, 2021: a Makadara magistrate allows police to hold him for 30 days.
September 2021: his statements about killings in Bungoma County make headlines; detectives take him there, and the death of Emmanuel Wafula is linked to him.
October 12 to 13, 2021: he leaves Jogoo Road police station, Nairobi, overnight; his absence is found at the morning roll call on the day he was due to take a plea.
October 13, 2021: a nationwide search begins; Mike Sonko offers a reward. Three officers on duty are arrested in the following days.
October 15, 2021: he is killed by a crowd at Mukhweya village, Bungoma County; the same day a Nairobi magistrate releases the three officers on bail.
October 20, 2021: a post-mortem examination is carried out; the family does not attend.
October 22, 2021: the three officers deny aiding a prisoner to escape and neglect of duty.
October 24, 2021: relatives say they will not bury him at the family home.
November 10, 2021: his father says he is not sure the dead man is his son.
September 2024: Magistrate Robison Ondieki finds the officers have a case to answer and puts them on their defense.