When a criminal’s handwriting pinned him

The year is 1978 and the place is Mpala along Entebbe road. Police receives a report; a family of five has been burnt alive inside their two-room house.
A team is dispatched from Entebbe Police Station to visit the scene of crime, led by Inspector Oyukut, then officer in-charge of the criminal investigation department.
At the scene, the police find everything inside the mud house had been reduced to cinders. Although the bodies have been burnt beyond recognition, police easily identifies a woman holding a baby inside the cupboard where she must have taken refuge as the fire raged on.

A man, who seemed to have held another baby to his chest, lies at the entrance of the bedroom; he must have been making a desperate attempt to reach the front door. Another child is found also burnt, under the bed.
Inside the house, there is nothing much left for the police to kick start this murder investigation occasioned by arson.

As one of the detectives scans the scene for any possible pieces of evidence to get the arsonists, all he can pick is a strong smell of petrol that seems to have been used to start the fire. As he scans the environment, he remembers something he read from a James Bond novel, “Everything you need in a crime is at the scene.”
This detective is attracted by two creased papers placed on the lower step on opposite ends of the door posts. “Without attracting attention I picked the first paper and right away placed it inside my jacket and moved and picked the other one and placed it inside another pocket,” recalls the detective.

About 10 metres from the house among the mourners, the detective is attracted by an elderly woman wailing at the top of her voice. “She must be a relative,” he thinks to himself but he can hardly pick anything she says apart from “Amuse, amuse,” (loosely translated to mean, “he killed him”).
The detective moves to condole with the Muluka Chief also standing among the mourners. The team is satisfied that there is nothing more to pick from the scene and they call in an Italian doctor, who comes with an ambulance. The bodies are placed on mats, put into an ambulance and driven to Entebbe hospital.

Back at the police station, as everybody goes about their duties, this detective once inside his office pulls out the first paper he picked right below the front door.
He is amazed at what he sees – five bullets wrapped in a paper containing writing.
“To me, these pistol bullets were meant to divert attention, to make us think that there were soldiers involved. If there were soldiers involved, there was no need for them to use fire, they would have shot and killed the occupants,” he reasons.

With the basic Luganda he knows, he reads the writing on the papers: “Obadde wepankapanka kati tukuyigiriza esomo,” loosely translated (You were boasting; now we have taught you a lesson). He reaches for the other paper and it has a similar message: “Obadde wepankapanka kakati oyize,” loosely translated to mean (you were boasting; now you have learnt). To be sure he has read right, he calls in two other detectives who read the writings and confirm the message.
As he prepares to go for breakfast at his house, he finds out that the deceased had a misunderstanding with someone . At that moment, it is not clear what the misunderstanding is all about. After breakfast, he moves to his immediate boss, Inspector Oyukut, whom he had visited the scene with, but his boss does not buy his line of argument that the deceased had a misunderstanding with someone. He believes it is a bad case.

Investigations
The bodies are released for burial and three days later, the detective decides to make a move.
“My mind went to the old woman who was wailing that day, she must have known something; but the problem was, where was I going to find her? I knew the Muluka chief would help me trace her,” says the detective. At the time he earned Shs310 a month, so the detective buys a kilogramme each of sugar and salt, soap and paraffin which cost him about Shs7. He then goes to the Muluka chief hoping he will direct him to the old woman.

With his goodies inside a paper bag, the detective tells the Muluka chief he is going to condole with the old woman, to calm his suspicion. The chief willingly directs him to the old woman’s home after telling him how the deceased had been a prison warder at Kitala prison along Entebbe road.
The detective finds the old woman’s home with ease. “I introduced myself as a relative of the deceased man and she gave me a seat. I reached for my paper bag and pulled out the sugar, salt, soap and paraffin I had carried for her,” the detective remembers.

“The old woman opened up and told me how, ‘my relative’ had been burnt inside the house.” Although he was not related to the deceased, the detective said so to use it as a cover to get information. According to the old woman, the assailant had done it out of jealousy. The two had been dealing in cattle business with the deceased as a cattle trader and the arsonist as a butcher.

The old woman told the detective that the assailant was Kakande. According to her while Kakande used all his money on booze, the deceased used his money to buy land and build a house which caused the bad blood.
After getting that information, the detective then went onto the ground to establish who Kakande was. “I got feelers, that Kakande was a smuggler. He was one of the smugglers who were using a route around the current Nabinonya beach on Lake Victoria to smuggle coffee to Tanzania,” the detective recalls. He then went to Kitala prisons where he was told the deceased had resigned as a prison warder to concentrate on his cattle business.
A month after the deceased had been buried, the detective felt it was is a good time to visit the deceased’s home. Enough time had passed not to raise any suspicion with the Muluka chief.

The detective had become acquainted with a number of names in the village, names like Wasswa, Katongole, Mukasa, and Kakande among others who were residents of Mpala. “My interest was Kakande but to get to know who Kakande really was, I decided to ask about other people in the village and what they were doing, so that I do would not raise suspicion,” he recalls.
Many of them were fishermen but, the Muluka chief told him, Kakande was a smuggler who never stayed at home. According to the chief, Kakande only came home on Sunday. He also showed him Kakande’s home which was located on the road leading to Nabinonya beach.

“Time had passed, so it was difficult for the Muluka chief to think I was investigating the arson case in which five people had died. He believed I was investigating a case of smuggling, which had been outlawed by Amin.”
The detective bought yet other goodies and went to visit the old woman. This time round the old woman told him how Kakande was bragging in the village, that he was going to take over the deceased’s property.

Armed with this information, the detective co-opted two other detectives, and briefed them that they had a place to go to search for smuggled goods.

The detective waited until Sunday when he was sure Kakande had returned from his smuggling escapades and was resting.
“With my colleagues armed with rifles and me a pistol, we moved before daybreak and surrounded the house, I briefed them to search and recover anything related to smuggling. At daybreak we knocked at the door and they opened for us. We called him out and when he came I handcuffed him,” recalls the detective.

“I informed him that we were to search his home because he was involved in smuggling. He pleaded with me to spare him, promising to pay me money. I promised him I would help him but we first needed to search his house.”
“As the other detectives searched the house for coffee, I went for the books. I was trying to find the book from which the two papers had been torn; when I opened the black book on the dining table I saw from where the papers had been torn,” says the detective.

What struck the detective most was the similarity of the handwriting in the black book and on the two papers he had as evidence. He confiscated the black book, along with a prayer book, a Bible, and a notebook.
The other detectives impounded coffee and opium.
When the detective saw, a stack of barkcloth in a corner, he walked over to inspect them, prompting Kakande to protest.
“This protest was heard by the other detectives. They insisted that I should check but Kakande continued to protest, urging the detectives to leave the fetishes because they were spiritual,” the detective says.
When the detective insisted and made a step forward, a huge cobra raised its head and nearly struck him. It only lowered its head when the detective moved away.

Satisfied with the catch, the detective radioed for a car to pick them; they loaded the recovered items and together with the suspect headed to Entebbe police station.
At Entebbe, Kakande, who was convinced that he had been arrested for smuggling, was locked up in the police cell. The detective took his time to scan the books. In the books were details of agreements of his cattle trading business.
“The next day early in the morning I brought him out and we talked about smuggling, avoiding talk about the fire or even the books,” the detective recalls. Kakande told him how his last mission had failed and how Tanzanian authorities had confiscated all his coffee.

Kakande pleaded with the detective to spare him because taking him to court would mean he was going to be put before the firing squad.
“At that time (then president) Amin had directed that any smugglers arrested should be court-martialled and the only punishment was firing squad,” recalls the detective.
After interrogation, the detective sent Kakande back to the cells until the next day.
“When Kakande was brought the next day, I showed him the Bible with his name inside and I asked him who had written his names in the Bible,” recalls the detective.

The detective’s colleagues stood guard outside as he interrogated the suspect.
Kakande confirmed that the Bible was his and he had written his names in it. “I was avoiding asking leading questions because I knew if he answered me ‘yes’ or ‘no’ it would be the end of story,” the detective says.
He asked him about the prayer book and the notebook and Kakande confirmed they were his and it was his handwriting in them.
The detective then pulled out the black book and asked Kakande about the agreements. “He told me he was dealing in cattle, that was why he had written those agreements.”

The detective then pulled out one of the papers he had picked outside the front door of the burnt house and showed it to Kakande.
“I asked him to who he was writing the note I was holding. Kakande was shocked, he opened his eyes, tried to say something but failed and he collapsed,” the detective recalls.
“The two detectives rushed into the room when they heard the bang and were wondering whether I had beaten the suspect who was lying down. But they said they had not heard any beating and agreed I had not beaten him. We waited for him to regain his consciousness,” the detective says.
The detective later recorded a charge and caution statement for Kakande and took him to court where he was charged with murder.
The court found him guilty of the crime and gave him a long prison term.

[email protected]