As the nation still tries to come to terms with the recent discovery of 19yr-old Desire Mirembe’s defiled body, questions abound. The late Desire’s is only one of a number of female student murders reported in the last few months, all executed in a markedly similar fashion.
On 4th February 2014, the media reported the story of a 2nd year Bach. Bio-Chemistry student whose body had been found abandoned in a bush by her attackers after being raped and later strangled. Penina Kobusingye, a Makerere University student was reportedly last seen with a mysterious man on an outing having fun just a few hours before her murder.
Five days later on 9th February 2014, twenty-year-old Emily Akire’s body was discovered in a swamp in Nalukolongo after she had spent some time missing. She had been raped and later strangled. The media reported that the Makerere University Business School student, until then pursuing a Bachelor of Business Administration, had been seen before her disappearance in the company of a stranger seemingly known to her.
On 15th May this year, Campusbee reported how the body of Beatrice Mudondo, a 2nd year Bach. of Commerce student at MUBS, was found dumped in Kataza along the railway line. Raped. Strangled. The website added that this was the 3rd such incident in the semester.
One month later on 14th July, Campusbee again breaks the story of ¹st year Desire Mirembe’s horrifying murder. Raped. Strangled. The Makerere University student who had just finished her first year was allegedly seen leaving her hostel in the company of a male stranger before excitedly heading to Jinja where she would meet her death. The body would later be discovered by children in a sugarcane plantation after days of a frenzied search.
A few days later after Desire’s murder, Campusbee reported that the erstwhile boyfriend to the late had been arrested in connection with the murder as he attempted to escape to a nearby country. Many would hasten to mentally convict him for the murder on the basis that “why was he fleeing if he had done nothing wrong?” but let’s examine some scenarios:
In Dec. 2012, former Butaleja District legislator Cerina Nebanda died under similarly mysterious circumstances as the late girls. In the following days after her death, the media painted Nebanda’s alleged boyfriend Adam Kalungi as the culprit behind her death.
This was majorly because of his unarguably suspicious conduct after her death. In fact, he fled to Kenya from where he was arrested on 4th January 2013 and extradited to Uganda where he was later tried as the prime suspect.
Long story short, as events unfolded after Kalungi’s capture and extradition, it became clear that he had fled not really out of guilt that he had committed the murder, but because of a genuine fear for his own life. No wonder in July 2014, he was acquitted.
Similarly on June 13 1994, a murder so shocking rocked the world. It involved Nicole Brown Simpson, the wife of a famous American footballer, O. J. Simpson, who was found stabbed to death.
Prior to Simpson’s wife’s murder, their love life had reportedly been on the rocks. OJ constantly suspected his wife of adultery.
After his wife’s murder, OJ did exactly what you are thinking: he fled. Like a well scripted movie scene, OJ’s flight with dozens of Police cars trailing behind him was covered live by thousands of press teams and over 20 news helicopters, with CNN and other major news agencies interrupting normal programming to relay the chase live to a combined viewership of over 100 million people. Majority of the riveted viewership interpreted OJ’s flight as an admission of guilt.
If it werent for the doleful pleas of his mother over the Police speakers, OJ would still be on the run. After eight months of a gruelling trial which came to be dubbed as the criminal trial of the century, on October 3 1995, OJ was actually found not guilty!
As the above scenarios show, running away is not always a reflection of the suspect’s guilt.
Back to the issue of the murdered girls, one thing is apparent: their murders have been performed in a similar pattern: Girl goes out with a mysterious stranger to onlookers but who appears well known to her. Later found raped. Strangled. Body dumped (not that you would expect the murderer to stay with the body, anyway). They usually have bruises around the neck. They are usually in 1st or 2nd year, and as such are still somehow the naive young adults that new campusers are known to be and hence susceptible to manipulation. Their friends usually describe them as very religious people and therefore can be easily ensnared by a religious criminal.
What is of concern is that their murders are rarely investigated and prosecuted to a logical conclusion majorly due to lack of evidence to implicate a particular suspect.
The minimal rate of success so far in prosecuting of suspects behind these mysterious university girls’ murders in contrast with the similar patterns in the way these murders are carried out beggars the question: is a serial killer on the loose?
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