How detectives recovered murder weapon in Ssembabule

Business at Mr Steven Kamuhanda’s five-square mile farm at Kigano village, Kawanda Parish of Lugusululu Sub-county in Ssembabule District was not going on well.

Mr Kamuhanda had partitioned his ranch into three paddocks and he had appointed a manager for each. To effectively manage the entire ranch, he chose one of the managers as the overall ranch manager but he would also ensure supervision of his paddock.

Mr Kamuhanda appointed Gerald Nuwahereza as the overall ranch manager. However, the boss alleged that three months after Nuwahereza’s appointment, he never led to growth at the ranch.

Mr Kamuhanda wasted no time. He made another change, promoting Christopher Musinguzi, one of the kraal managers, to the position of overall manager to replace Nuwahereza.

Nuwahereza was made a kraal manager and he was to report to Musinguzi who was formerly his junior.

Kamuhanda had intended that the new changes bring efficiency to his farming business, but little did he know that he was sowing seeds of intrigue that later turned the ranch management upside down.

Nuwahereza never came to terms with his boss and the new kraal manager after the demotion, whereas Musingizi continued with his job.

However, wrangling between the two parties spilled over to their families.

Mr Fred Enanga, the then Ssembabule Officer in Charge of Investigations, says: “I could often receive complaints and counter complaints of assaults, theft, witchcraft and threatening violence from each of these parties against the other.”

Often times, police would find the accusations unfounded.
Several times, it is reported, Musunguzi attempted to brief Mr Kamuhanda, who rarely visited the ranch, about the fears but in vain.

But on March 24, 2005, an incident occurred that shocked residents and police authorities.

On a hazy morning, a resident walking to his workplace found the body of Musinguzi lying in a pool of blood near a path in the farm. The resident made an alarm that attracted the attention of the ranch neighbours.

Police were called in. Musinguzi’s body had a deep wound in the chest near the heart.
Detectives, officers of the then dog unit, mobile patrol unit and scene of crime officers rushed to the scene bent on finding the suspect(s).

They collected evidence. The public pointed the finger at no one other than Nuwahereza for the alleged killing of his colleague over a fight for the job and they wanted to lynch him.

Nuwahereza’s relatives were also offering clues that it could have been one of the cattle keepers or hunters since the deceased was hard on them. Some people claimed that they saw Nuwahereza within the vicinity of the ranch the night before.

To prevent bloodshed, the police arrested and detained him but on no specific charges were preferred against him since no evidence linking him to the crime had been obtained.

Police sniffer dogs were brought in. They followed the scent and led their handlers to areas that did not add up in their investigations.

Other than Musinguzi’s body, they had nothing else helpful in investigations.
Detectives now went back to the previous incidents at the farm to see if they would bring them to any conclusions.

Several people were interrogated, including hunters who often roved the ranch to catch wildlife. Detectives did not know that the clue would come from someone far away from the ranch.
One hunter they talked to claimed to have sold a spear to Nuwahereza a few months before the incident.

Detectives seized the opportunity. They took the hunter to the mortuary where Musinguzi’s body was being kept.
He looked at the wound on the body and said that the wound could have been inflicted by a spear.

Mr Enanga says the hunter’s evidence could be spot on since he was an expert in forensic to know which weapon could have been used to inflict injury.

Nevertheless, detectives pursued his argument. They went back and interrogated Nuwahereza whether he bought a spear from a hunter.

His response was positive but he added that he lost it a few weeks after buying it.

“We thought we had got enough evidence that linked him to the murder scene at the time of the killing and that he bought a spear, which was now a murder weapon,” Mr Enanga says.

After extensive interviews with several people, they submitted their file to the Director of Public Prosecution in Masaka District.

Then hell broke loose. “The Principal State Attorney (PSA) wrote that evidence we had didn’t warrant the charge of murder. We all froze. The PSA said we had to look for the murder weapon if we are prove the case,” he says.

The PSA ended up ordering the release of the suspects.

“The entire sub-county turned against us. People wondered how we could release a person despite overwhelming evidence. We also had no answers,” he recalls. “We had to do nearly everything all over again,” Mr Enanga says.

A police search team was tasked to search for murder weapon in a five-square mile piece of land.

“It was a two-week search but to no avail,” he says.
Police officers checked the walls of the huts, pit-latrines and valleys but nothing like a spear could be recovered.

Meanwhile, Nuwahereza was busy chest-thumping, telling all who could listen to him in the village that police could not manage him.

Mr Enanga says information could reach them but their hands were tied, they had failed to find the murder weapon.
As the officers were about to give up, they discovered another way they could search for the weapon.

“We said to ourselves that we need to do a thorough check of the suspect’s house, especially the roof. It was a breakthrough,” he says.

Officers went to Nuwahereza’s house and removed a few pieces of straws from the hut’s roof until they reached the pinnacle.
“We found a spear had been squeezed in the grass. Our prayers were that what we found was the murder weapon,” he says.

The officers would only confirm by carrying out forensic tests on the spear, which did not even have a dot of blood on it.
A hunter, who claimed that he sold the spear to Nuwahereza, was called in to see if it was the same spear, his answer was yes but it was not enough evidence in court.

Before the murder weapon was sent to the forensic experts, officers wondered whether the scene of crime officers had taken a blood sample from the body of the deceased.

Shockingly, none had been taken. The forensic experts could not establish whether the stains they found on the murder weapon was the blood of the deceased.

“We had to exhume the body to get the swab (blood sample). Fortunately, the relatives had buried the deceased’s blood-stained clothes near the house. We got them and took them to the forensic expert,” he says.

After the suspect realised that the spear had been got, he complained of harassment to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) in Kampala.

The DPP was moved by the complaints and called the file.
As the DPP was completing perusing the file, the results from the government chemist came out showing that the blood sample taken from the spear matched with that found on the clothes of the deceased.

The spear was declared a murder weapon and the file was sanctioned.
“I went to Kampala, picked the file and headed back to Ssembabule without telling any party that it had been sanctioned.

Both parties continued to bash me as I waited the suspect to report for the renewal of his bond,” he says.
One morning, the confident suspect reported to the police station for the renewal of his bond only to be arrested and taken to Masaka District.

The then Senior Principal Attorney based in Masaka Town, wondered why the police had arrested the man whom she had ordered to be release.

“I showed her a sanctioned file and she rested her case. We proceeded to court and the suspect was remanded,” he says.
After a protracted case, the suspect was finally given bail in court. It was the last time authorities saw him. He is now a wanted person.

Probing murder cases
The police spends Shs5 million on average to investigate each murder case, according to a senior officer, Mr Edward Ochom.
“Investigation of murder cases require a lot of manpower, expertise and resource because it involves movement and expensive medical examinations,” Mr Ochom said.

The past year alone, 2,326 murder cases were investigated which means Shs11.6b was spent on the investigation of those cases.
Some murder case investigations take more than Shs5m.

During the investigation into the death of Butaleja District Woman Member of Parliament, Cerinah Nebanda, police sent two officers with samples of body tissues to the UK and Israel for examination. Transporting each officer to their destination cost more than Shs10m.