Twenty-year-old Masten Milimu Wanjala does not look like a murderer.
He has a shy, almost fearful look and a frail build. This must be what has allowed him, in Nairobi and the surrounding area, to lure young boys aged 10 to 13 and kill them.
The Kenyan Directorate of Crime Investigation, however, is confronted with what is probably the most heinous serial killer ever in the country.
After arresting him in recent days in connection with the kidnapping and subsequent discovery of the mutilated bodies of three boys aged 10 and 13 in two different districts of the capital, Kabete and Buruburu, the police have managed to get him to confess to other murders linked to other kidnappings of which they have received reports from relatives. The DCI is already on the trail of a fourth small body, but Wanjala has reportedly already confessed to 12 murders in total.
The first two boys found, Charles Opindo Bala and Junior Musyoka, were strangled, mutilated and their ears cut off. It was the murderer himself who led the police to the scene of the crime and to the places where he dumped them.
According to revelations by investigators, reported by The Star newspaper, the suspect confessed to playfully luring his intended victims and then inviting them to see 'beautiful things'. After an appeal launched by the association 'Missing Child Kenya', the search was launched and some witnesses, in the two places of the disappearance, saw the murderer together with other boys playing football. The sketch matched Wanjala, who was caught in the town of Kitengela, where he was hiding after learning that the search for his victims had been launched.
According to Chief of Police Nthumbi, Wanjala may not have acted alone and there may have been witchcraft rituals behind it, although the mother of one of the two children revealed that she had received a ransom demand of 50,000 shillings (just over 400 euro).
The search for the other children has now begun, and the risk is that we will see other gruesome scenes that for now have only the madness of a 20-year-old as their motive.
In Kenya, 61 children have been reported missing since the beginning of the year and most of them have yet to be found. Many other children go missing without being reported and among them are also victims of tribal rites or organ trafficking.
The police force has recently created a special team to investigate these cases.
"The DCI has already made great strides in tracking down the gangs behind many of these crimes. Some of these cases involve illegal business deals or trade agreements that can be settled through kidnapping and murder. But we are solving the problem.