How 7-year-old led police to ex- Monitor worker’s body, suspects

Sunday May 6 will remain a painful memory in the lives of the late Abel Katende’s relatives, friends, neighbours and former workmates.
Katende, who formerly worked at Monitor Publications Ltd as a senior sales executive, was brutally killed and his body chopped into pieces.
The body was retrieved from a pit-latrine at his former residence in Luteete in Kasangati, Wakiso District, where his estranged wife and children lived after the couple separated several years ago, following unresolved family conflicts.
Katende was kidnapped from his countryside home in Busawa in Masuulita Sub-county off the Ssemuto-Nakaseke road, Wakiso District and went missing for 10 days.

Police were able to trace his remains after arresting his wife Janat Namugenyi, two daughters and a son who were implicated in masterminding his killing. Information that led to the suspects’ arrest was provided by a seven-year-old boy, who according to police, heard Katende screaming for help inside his house. Apparently, his estranged wife’s car was seen parked in the compound moments before Katende was announced missing.

Screams
The young boy had been living with Katende for some time. On the fateful day, he left home at 9am to pick his end-of-term report card at his school. Upon return, the boy told detectives, he heard screams inside the house as he stood at the gate.
Police say the boy got scared and did not enter the house. He rushed to a neighbour whom he informed that something strange was happening inside Katende’s house. The neighbour also feared to enter the gate and decided to alert the LCI chairman.

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However, as they approached the home, the vehicle resembling his wife’s was leaving. They proceeded and entered the residence but the house was locked. Dead silence hang over the house.
Suspicion of a homicide reigned high and they alerted police.
“The child and neighbours said they repeatedly called Katende but there was no response. They suspected that something wrong had happened to him. That was when they called his son [Andrew Katende Nkubi] who works in town [Kampala],” a detective said.
On May 6, police raided Namugenyi’s home in Luteete in Kasangati Town Council.

Nkubi who is the deceased’s second born corroborated the detective’s information to the media as police were retrieving his father’s body at his wife’s residence in Luteete. Nkubi said he got a phone call at about 3pm from a neighbour that his father was missing. The neighbour told Nkubi that his mother’s car had been seen in the compound of the Masuulita home around the time his father went missing. They referred him to a young boy, who had heard Katende yelling. Nkubi spoke to the boy who reaffirmed the story.

“I called my young brother [Gideon Kaaya] and asked him whether he had any information regarding our father’s disappearance but he denied. I called my mother and she told me she had left him in a clinic at Kavule Trading Centre because he was feeling unwell,” Nkubi told journalists.

Searching
He said his mother did not tell him the name of the clinic. Since he was still at work, Nkubi asked his father’s neighbours to start searching for him. He joined them later upon return from work. On arrival, he engaged the young boy, who recounted the incident. He opened a case of a missing person at Masuulita Police Station. The search continued but in vain. Nkubi involved the police Flying Squad Unit (FSU) at Kampala Central Police Station (CPS).
“When I went to police, I told them that neighbours said my mother and siblings were the main suspects in my father’s disappearance. They were arrested but they declined to reveal any information until the interrogators became hard on them,” Nkubi said.

Key suspects
The deputy police spokesperson, Mr Patrick Onyango, told the media shortly after Katende’s body had been retrieved at Luteete that the wife and children were key suspects and the cause for the gruesome murder revolved around property.
“We have the wife and some other family members in our custody and they are the ones who have helped us to identify his body. We are investigating kidnap and murder,” Mr Onyango said.

Sources said Namugenyi and her three children; Gideon Kaaya, Lilian Najjuma and Charity Nabukalu hatched a plan to eliminate him accusing him of refusing to transfer the land title of his Masuulita home. According to family sources, Namugenyi had often demanded that Katende transferred the Masuulita land title into her name and her children’s names on suspicion that he would marry another wife since he had abandoned the first home in Luteete, Kasangati.

Apparently, Katende abandoned the Luteete home fleeing hostility from his wife and children.
“The boy [Kaaya] said he was not part of the plan to kill their father. He said his elder sisters; Nabukalu and Najjuma often accused their father of bewitching them. He even said it was Nabukalu who hit him on the head when he was in the house, killing him instantly,” an investigator said.

Poisoning
Sources added that Namugenyi had allegedly proposed to eliminate Katende by poisoning but the scheme failed because the deceased stopped eating food prepared by his wife and his children.
It is also said that on the fateful day when the wife and children visited Katende at Masuulita, he declined to eat food they prepared in the house.
Detectives have told Sunday Monitor that Kaaya has since made statements implicating his mother and sisters.
Kaaya reportedly told detectives that he was forced to drive the car, which carried his father’s body, up to their house in Luteete.
Upon reaching there, the car was parked inside the gate leading to the rentals.

The vehicle also had food stuffs, which was carried from the Masuulita home. The young children were strictly told to keep a distance away from the car as the food was being offloaded, according to the investigators.
The body was kept in the car and some hired stout men chopped it into pieces and packed it in a sack, which was dumped in a pit latrine behind the house and sealed with concrete.
However, these claims could not be independently verified as Sunday Monitor was unable to access Kaaya’s police statement.
But upon a search at the Luteete home, police retrieved Katende’s chopped body packed in a sack from a pit-latrine.
Namugenyi, two daughters and a son are in custody but police said they are hunting more suspects who participated in the murder who are still at large.

The Kampala Metropolitan police spokesperson, Mr Luke Owoyesigire, said the vehicle, which transported Katende’s body had been recovered at the home of a money lender who was not at home at the time of the search.
“We have recovered the vehicle and witnesses have confirmed it was the one used to transport his body. We are looking for the money lender to give us an explanation whether he knew it had committed a crime or not,” Mr Owoyesigire said.

Other Recent homicide cases

Early this week: Saaka Kafeero, a renowned businessman in Namugongo was kidnapped and killed in a mission investigators say was orchestrated by relatives who learnt that he was carrying a lot of money to the bank in Mukono Municipality.
January 2: Francis Ekalungar, the Case Hospital accountant,

Case Clinic accountant killed, body burnt beyond recognition

Francis Ekalugar, 49, an accountant at Case Clinic in Kampala has been killed and his body burnt beyond recognition

two days later dumped in Kajjansi on Entebbe Road. The murder was reportedly caused by the killers’ belief he was carrying a lot of money to the bank.

READ:

Three arrested as CMI recover slain Case Hospital worker’s car

By Sunday morning, CMI operatives had arrested more than 20 Bodaboda 2010 members including their patron Abdullalh Kitata, his brother and a yet to be identified police officer

February 7: Susan Magara was kidnapped and spent 20 days in captivity before the killers dumped her body in Kigo off Entebbe Road on February 27. Among the leads investigators are following is a possible revenge for a business deal gone sour.

March 24: Charity Kyohirwe, a resident of Masajja Parish in Makindye Division, was kidnapped and found dead a few days later. Police claim she was kidnapped and killed in a mission masterminded by her husband because he wanted to retain all the properties they had made together. Nothing is conclusive yet. The case is still under investigation.
March 19: Aramazan Kibirige, a resident of Kagoma in Nansana Municipality, Wakiso District,

. He was later killed. Police arrested some relatives and friends as suspects.

April 5: Elizabeth Nakato was kidnapped and killed by people believed to be her relatives. Her body was dumped in Matugga at the Wakiso-Luweero district boundary. Her brother has been arrested.
It is alleged he wanted to inherit her three plots of land in Mukono District. He was found with land documents belonging to the deceased.

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