On July 30, a day after researcher Victoria Nthunya Mutiso was shot dead in Nairobi’s Upper Hill area, Police Inspector Kenneth Kipkemboi Sang was granted four days off work upon his request.
On August 3, a team of DCI officers walked into Nderi police post and requested to have a word with Sang, but he had not reported to work.
An undated photo of slain clinical psychologist and mental health researcher Dr Victoria Nthunya Mutiso.
Photo credit: Pool
Sang was, at the time, the officer in charge of Nderi police post, which falls under Kikuyu police station.
That same evening, a team of DCI officers went to a house Sang had rented in the Nderi area. He wasn’t there.
The officers later travelled to Narok, where Sang’s family settled years ago and made it their rural home, but he wasn’t there either.
Investigations would reveal that after the arrest of the Mulwas, Sang had suspected that detectives were onto him; hence the police officer decided to attempt a life on the run from his colleagues.
For 86 days, Sang only moved around at night and only to places he was sure nobody would identify him.
Investigators later established that Sang had on multiple occasions crossed between Kenya and Uganda, using the same unofficial routes that smugglers have used for decades, to meet friends who police believed helped finance his life on the run.
But a life on the run with no money became nearly impossible to sustain, and that financial hardship became the snare that caught a fugitive policeman who had, for nearly three months, seemingly outsmarted his colleagues at every turn.
Rose Mulwa and her son Chris Mulwa at the Milimani Law Courts on August 3, 2026. They are persons of interest in the fatal shooting of Dr Victoria Mutiso.
Photo credit: Billy Ogada | Nation Media Group
Investigators believe that a day after the Mulwas were arrested, Sang destroyed the two SIM cards he had, each from a different service provider.
When in Kenya, an investigator familiar with the probe said Sang would rely on a few relatives and close friends to host him for a few nights and provide him with money intended to outrun the police and, ultimately, justice.
Intelligence gathered by police in Kenya and Uganda indicated that at first in Jinja, Sang would not spend more than two nights in the same place.
At the slightest hint of suspicion that someone would recognise him, Sang would move to another hotel or guest house.
On two separate occasions, Sang abruptly left hotels he had paid for after suspecting that his identity had been discovered by other individuals within the establishments, police investigations show.
Investigations have revealed that 10 days before Dr Mutiso’s murder, Sang travelled to Kampala and Jinja, in what detectives believe was the start of an escape plan if police would find anything leading to him or other suspects.
More than a month into his Ugandan excursion, funds started to dry up. Occasionally, Sang would borrow phones and call friends and relatives to borrow money. In Jinja, he got a job as a bartender in one of the local establishments.
Last month, when businessman Pius Muiru Mbugua and a woman whose identity police kept secret were arrested, Sang was the primary target.
Police had gathered intelligence that Sang would be at a hotel in Busia, meeting a group of people. One of the meeting attendees, the intelligence indicated, was supposed to hand Sang an undisclosed amount of money.
When officers from the DCI’s Crime Research and Intelligence Bureau arrived at the hotel, they only found Mbugua and the mystery woman.
Sang was a no-show, even after officers waited hours in the hope that their fugitive colleague was only running late. Investigators believe that he may have received a tip-off from one of the meeting attendees.
One night in Eldoret, Sang was to meet a friend in a hotel along Uganda Road in Eldoret to request funds, and police got wind of the meeting and sent investigators from its Nairobi headquarters.
Sang dodged the trap by not showing up for the meeting, in what seemed to be a repeat of Busia. He is believed to have gone back to Uganda.
Last week, an investigator told the Nation that Sang believed that someone in Jinja had identified him, and so he decided to run back to Kenya and settled in Eldoret on Friday as he sought funds to sustain his escape.
The DCI sent one of his contacts, who had become a police informer, to plant the car-selling idea in Sang’s head.
On the other end, the DCI formed a team to pose as interested buyers. The plan worked when Sang got in touch with the undercover police officers and agreed to a meeting along Uganda Road.
