A Kenyan university student has confessed to the police giving details of how he planned and killed five members of his family, local media reports.
The 22-year-old student, Lawrence Simon Warunge said that he used a metal bar to hit his mother, brother, father and cousin before stabbing them with a knife.
He said he was influenced by a British comedy-drama spy thriller television series – “Killing Eve”.
Simon told the police he went online to search how he can execute his mission the same way the main character in the movie “Psychopathic Assassin”, Villanelle does without a trace.
“He says he searched the whole script online and he intended to conceal his tracks by even killing the remaining sisters,” said an investigator aware of the probe.
Simon told the police that his parents were satanic and cruel, that they hated him and talked behind his back, the Star Newspaper reports.
Two of his sisters who had reported back to school survived the attack.
His mother was a psychologist nurse in Kenya, while the father was a nurse in the US and had arrived in the country for Christmas festivities before his murder.
Investigators have re-opened investigations into other killings that took place in the extended family.
Police have also arrested the suspect’s girlfriend. The pair was arraigned in court on Monday.
Police are puzzled how he managed to kill the five without resistance.
Plans are to conduct an autopsy on the bodies Monday to establish how the victims died.
He was arrested on Friday night in Kabete area after he went to seek refuge there while on the run.
Police said they arrested Lawrence after he went missing since last week Tuesday when his parents, two brothers, and a worker were brutally murdered at their home in Kiambaa Constituency, Kiambu county.
After his arrest, he confessed to the incident and led police to a residence in Mai Mahiu area on Saturday where they recovered the killer weapon- a kitchen knife, piece of clothes, shoes, and a piece of paper. He had thrown the exhibits to a pit latrine.
Police dug the wall of the latrine and used ropes to recover the exhibits from the 20 feet deep pit.
He also took police to an open field in the same area where he said he burnt some of the evidence.
An ambulance carrying bodies of four family members killed at Karuri village, Kiambaa, Kiambu County leaves the scene on January 6, 2020.
Lawrence claims he killed the five alone, police said; but police said they are open to a possibility there were other players.
The most chilling part is where Lawrence said he caught up with his father-Nicholas Njenga Warunge-as he escaped from him after he broke one of his legs after jumping off a balcony.
“He says the father was hit by an electric cable as he ran away and jumped off the balcony and was indisposed further after he fractured a leg. This gave him time to catch up with him and killed him like a snake,” said an officer who had heard the confession.
The father’s body had 34 stab wounds. Lawrence’s girlfriend, who lived in the house in Mai Mahiu, is also being held for interrogation.
Lawrence said after he murdered the five using a kitchen knife at about 8 pm he jumped onto a motorcycle and rode up to the nearby Wangige shopping centre where he took a public service vehicle to Mai Mahiu while carrying the killer weapon and other recovered evidence.
The bodaboda rider is yet to be found for questioning. In his chilling confession, he said on arrival at Mai Mahiu, he went to an open field in the area where he burnt some of them on Tuesday, January 5 at about 11 pm.
Detectives from the Homicide Unit visited the site and collected the debris for analysis.
The officers and the suspect donned white surgery clothes as they visited the scenes where he disposed of the exhibits.
Lawrence told police that his parents were “satanic and killers” hence deserved to die.
Lawrence is a university student in the city and was initially thought to have gone to school.
His mobile phone signal was traced to Mai Mahiu, Naivasha. It was later traced to Thika and later to Kabete area on Friday.
Police said the suspect went to a relative’s home in Ngorongoro area to seek refuge there before they were alerted Friday night.
He was later arrested when he told police his parents were “satanic and cruel”.
Police had thought at least five people were involved in the murder of Nicholas Njoroge Warunge, his wife Annie, sons Christian and Maxwell and a construction worker James Kinyanjui.
Their badly mutilated bodies were found in their Kiambaa home on Tuesday and Wednesday last week.
Warunge had arrived in Kenya from the USA where he worked as a nurse for Christmas holidays about 11 days before his murder.
His two elder daughters survived the cold blood murder because they had the previous day gone to school.
Annie, who worked with Kiambu County Government as a psychologist nurse, and two of their children, were found murdered and the bodies lying in the compound.
Lawrence told the police he first killed the mason in his house, which is few meters away from the main house, by slitting his throat.
He then made his way into the house through the rear door, where he found his mother Annie and hacked her to death before slitting her throat.
The commotion in the kitchen drew the attention of the second victim, his cousin Maxwell Njenga who was confronted along the corridor and cut in the head and throat.
He said he killed Maxwell even as he asked for mercy from him while kneeling. His blood brother Christian Njenga, who detectives say was killed and his throat slit on his bed had just turned 13 on December 26, 2020.
He claimed his father, Warunge was in the master bedroom upstairs at the time of the attack.
His father rushed to the balcony on sensing danger and jumped down where he broke his leg but was caught up and stabbed several times to death.
He has 34 stab wounds and a slit throat.
Kiambu police boss, Ali Nuno said they will also revisit past unsolved murder incidents that happened in the family and are probably related to the latest murder.
Tuesday’s incident was the fifth in the family according to Nuno. He said the first victim was killed in 2016 when one Allan Warunge, a brother to Njoroge was a victim twice.
He was shot for the first time and confined on a wheelchair before his assailants pursued him later.
“There has been an incident which involved Alan Njire Waruinge in 2016 who was a victim after being shot twice after being confined in a wheelchair. And there was Kenneth Mungai Waruinge who was assassinated alongside with his niece thereafter.”
“Kinyanjui Kamau, a family member, was also killed in unclear circumstances,” said Nuno.
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