NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 9 – A former G4S security guard who has confessed murdering at least 19 people has now revealed that he was targeting to kill 100 people.
Thirty-two year-old Philip Onyancha who has already given police the name of his accomplice says he was recruited into a cult that convinced him he would become one of the wealthiest men in Kenya if he killed and drank the blood of his victims.
“It is an urge you develop once you are initiated, and since I got into this thing, I have always had a passion to kill,” Mr Onyancha who spoke under heavy police guard told Capital News.
“My target was 100 people… once I achieved that I could have been very rich. It is that power of conviction in me, but all that is now gone because I have confessed,” he added.
During police interrogation and interviews with journalists, the suspect said he planned to accomplish his mission in a span of five years and was mainly targeting women and children under 10 because they are weak.
“I always went for the weak in the society. You know women and children are always weak and vulnerable which makes them an easy target,” he said in fluent English.
Mr Onyancha who was detained last week said he was grateful to the police for arresting him because it had helped him speak against the “evil spirits” which have been haunting him.
“I feel relieved, I am happy to have confessed all this. It was troubling… it was not my wish to do these evils, I know it is a crime to kill and it is against the 10 commandments of God, but you see I was not myself,” he said amid pauses to catch a glimpse of a surging crowd that wanted to lynch him as he took police around Thika.
“I even told these police officers when they came to arrest me… they were all armed and they thought I was armed. I told them I am just a simple guy, and if they have managed to arrest me, then they are too powerful. I thought so because I was very sure nobody could ever arrest me, I had this power of conviction out of spirits I got when I was initiated,” he said.
“I regret a lot. I share the pain with the grieving families but then it was not my fault, it was the spirits in me. I will not repeat what I have been doing because my initiators warned me that if I ever reveal it to anyone or confess, I lose the spirits and the power,” he said “I am now back to my senses.”
“I have killed a total of 19 people, and I can recall each incident very well, it is like it occurred today, I can take you to all the scenes, the only problem is that in some cases the bodies are not there like in the lodgings where I killed women,” he said.
The Head of the Special Crime Prevention Unit (SCPU) Richard Katola said they were equally shocked at the revelations made by the suspect.
“He has helped us a lot in resolving murder cases which were a mystery to us. We are still investigating the cases and will take him to court once we are through with him,” he said.
Since Sunday, the suspect has been showing police where he dumped bodies of his victims and investigators have been able to recover skeletons, skulls and clothes of the victims.
He first took the police to a forest near Lenana School on Sunday where the skull and clothes of a nine-year-old boy he confessed to have killed three months ago were found.
On Tuesday, he took police to Naivasha where he showed them a spot where he dumped the bodies of a woman and a young boy he killed while working as a guard at a flower farm.
Police were only able to recover clothes and sandals of the young boy which were subsequently identified positively by his mother.
Later that evening, he led police to the Nairobi Water and Sewerage Company (NWSC) offices in Karen shopping centre where the decomposed body of a woman he confessed to have killed in November 2008 was found.
Employees at the firm were shocked to learn that there has been a decomposing body stashed in the ceiling for nearly two years.
“I just lured her like the other victims and she followed me. I asked her to climb with me (up the ceiling) and she did. That is when I strangled her and sucked blood. I was very sure the body would not be found unless I showed people,” he said and added that he committed the offence when he worked there as a security guard.
The woman’s brother Mathew Korir identified the clothes found at the scene as those of his sister Catherine Chelangat, 32, who went missing in November 2008.
“We have been looking for her. We even made radio announcements with no success. On several occasions, a man called and demanded a ransom of Sh30, 000 and we paid part of the money before the mobile phone they were using went off. We even reported the matter to the police.”
On Wednesday morning, the suspect led police to the residential compound of a diplomat on Riverside Drive where another decomposing body of a woman was recovered in a septic tank, along with her personal belongings.
“I lured her into the compound sometimes in 2008 and I killed her. Her purse is in that septic tank and the body is in that other one,” he told police who immediately opened the septic tanks and found the remains before heading to Thika to identify lodgings where he confessed to have killed four commercial sex workers in March this year.
Business came to a standstill in the town when he led police to Room 5 at the second floor of Suitable Bar and Restaurant and confessed to have killed two women on diverse dates in March.
“I just rented the room and I invited a woman whom I killed and left her body there. It was recovered the following day and it was all over in the news. I did not panic at all because my spirits convinced me I will not be caught. After sometime, I did the same to another woman,” he said and directed police to yet another room at Rwambogo Bar and Restaurant located on Nkrumah Road where he confessed to have killed another woman.
Police said they would visit more scenes in Nyeri and Nakuru where the suspect has pledged to reveal more.
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