…says “They deserve to die”
A 22-year-old student, Lawrence Simon Warunge has confessed to the brutal murder of his parents, brother, cousin and a worker in Karura area, Kiambu county, Kenya, saying that “They deserve to die”.
Lawrence, a university InfoTech student, was arrested on Friday, January 8, after he went missing following the gruesome murder of his parents, brother, his cousin and a mason at their Karura home on Tuesday night.
Police said they arrested him as a prime suspect into the incident after a three-day manhunt.
After his arrest, he confessed to the incident and led police to a house in Mai Mahiu area on Saturday where they recovered the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, clothes, shoes and a piece of paper.
He had thrown the exhibits in 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.
Lawrence claimed he killed the five alone but police said they are open to a possibility there were others that aided him.
The most chilling part is how Lawrence said he caught up with his father, Nicholas Njenga Warunge as he escaped from him after he broke one of his legs from jumping off a balcony.
“He says his 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 he killed him like a snake,” said an officer who had heard the confession.
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 (motorcycle taxi) 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 they deserved to die.
Lawrence is a university student in the city and was initially thought to have gone to school.
Police said the suspect went to a relative’s home in Ngongoro area to seek refuge before they were alerted Friday night. He was later arrested, and 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.
It is believed a dispute over property was the motive of the murder.
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. Neighbours said they are in secondary school.
The bodies were moved to the mortuary where a post-mortem is expected on Monday.