His escape from police custody last week was straight out of a Riverwood thriller.
The intense five-day manhunt raised many questions about how an alleged murderer slipped out of a heavily guarded police station.
Kevin Adam Kinyanjui Kang'ethe, the 40-year-old man accused of killing his girlfriend in the United States of America and then fleeing to Kenya to evade justice, is said to have calmly walked out of Muthaiga police station and disappeared into thin air.
Kang'ethe's escape came to an end on Tuesday night after police, acting on a tip-off, raided a house in Ngong and arrested him. Police sources said the house belonged to the fugitive's relative.
Nairobi police boss Adamson Bungei told the Nation that the fugitive was captured at Embulbul in Ngong town.
After his capture, Kang'ethe was briefly detained at Ngong police station and later taken in a convoy of police vehicles to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) headquarters on Kiambu Road, where he spent the night.
Police found a brand new mobile phone, a charger and a bunch of keys on him.
The fugitive had been on Interpol’s Red Notice before he was arrested in the Parklands neighbourhood of Nairobi last month. A Red Notice, which is issued by the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action. It is based on an arrest warrant or court order issued by the judicial authorities in the requesting country.
Kevin Kangethe is wanted for the murder of his girlfriend Margaret Mbitu.
Photo credit: Boston Police
Kang’ethe’s Red Notice was issued by the US after police officers discovered the remains of his girlfriend in a car parked at the Logan International Airport.
Kang’ethe and his girlfriend, 31-year-old Margaret Mbitu, had lived in the US for years. She was a health care aide in Halifax, a small town in Massachusetts, and had last been seen leaving work on October 30. Investigations showed that, soon after leaving work, Margaret had travelled with Kangethe to Lowell, another small town in the same state.
Margaret Mbitu, 30, was found dead in a parking lot at Logan Airport in Boston, US.
Photo credit: Missing Person Poster
There, police said, he stabbed her several times in the face and neck, drove her lifeless body to Logan International Airport, and boarded a flight to Nairobi. The police trail on him went cold until January 30 this year, when he was arrested in a nightclub in the capital.
