ELGEYO MARKET, Kenya, Jul 16 – The manhunt for fugitive police officer Caroline Kangogo, who was declared armed and dangerous after killing two men has ended, after she was found dead at her parents’ home in Elgeyo Marakwet.
But tough questions are emerging over how she lost her life.
According to Rift Valley Regional commissioner George Natembeya, the suspect allegedly ended her life. Her mother, police said, found her body while going to the bathroom.
Preliminary reports indicate that the incident occurred at around 7:30am on Friday.
“The deceased mother called police and said she had found her daughter dead in their bathroom and a pistol besides her body,” Natembeya said.
Though the circumstances of her death remain unclear at this point, a postmortem examination will seek to verify the cause of death.
The deceased’s rural home is in Nyawa village, Tambach division in Keiyo.
Kangogo is said to have been wearing a similar attire she was spotted in while allegedly killing her last two victims.
A multi-agency team had been formed by the Directorate of Criminal investigations (DCI) to hunt her down.
-Possible surrender? –
In recent days, senior counsel John Khaminwa had expressed his intention to represent Kangogo.
He even filed an application in court, seeking to stop her imminent arrest and instead give an opportunity to the suspect to surrender herself to police.
The gesture from Khaminwa however came with certain conditions; she was advised to surrender her firearms to either the police or to any of Khaminwa’s law firm offices.
“She must be living under very difficult conditions. She is not interacting with anyone may it be family or friends. Such an application will allow her to regain her freedom. My firm will represent her and if police want to interrogate her, they will do so without arresting her. We have not heard her side of the story; she might as well be sick and in need of medication,” the veteran lawyer said.
-Double Murder-
Her first victim, police constable John Ogweno was found dead in Nakuru, with police saying he was shot on the right side of the head on July 5, 2021.
An empty cartridge of 9mm was recovered at the scene.
Police officers led by Nakuru Town East Sub-County Police Commander Phanton Analo said the officer passed on while in his vehicle at the police residential quarters.
One empty cartridge of 9 mm was recovered at the scene.
Also admitted as evidence was a metal bar found in the car. The cars’s window had been broken.
Detectives also reported that his firearm, a ceska pistol with 15 rounds of ammunition was also missing and was alleged to have been taken by the suspect.
The two are also alleged to have been in a romantic relationship for a month.
Kangogo is accused of targeting her second victim, a former police officer, 32-year-old Peter Ndwiga.
According to police, Ndwiga was killed inside a hotel room, in unclear circumstances.
Detectives who spoke to Shahidi News said the officer had on Monday July 5 been spotted with Ndwiga at Dedamax hotel in Kimbo area, Kiambu county.
The suspect entered the hotel in the company of the deceased at around 4pm, police and witnesses said.
Hotel staff told detectives that she left her room at around midnight. At the point when she was leaving, she told one of the staff members at the reception that she wanted to make a purchase at one of the local shops.
It is only after they discovered the body of the deceased laying in a pool of blood on the bed that they knew she had fled the scene.
Detectives at the crime scene said the man was shot in the head from a point-blank range. Postmortem examination on the two men revealed that they died of excessive bleeding.
-Transition from Kiganjo Police College-
Before she was transferred to Nakuru police station, Shahidi News has established that she was an instructor at the Kenya Police Training College, in Kiganjo, Nyeri.
“She was dating a senior police officer and while there, they sired two babies,” another colleague who worked with Kangogo in Kiganjo said.
But the two parted ways after ‘irreconcilable’ differences. The father of the two children is still serving as a police officer.
Kangogo previously served at P.T.C Mombasa in 2009, Kaloleni police station between 2010 and 2013, Kiganjo K.P.C between 2013 and 2015.
Before she was termed, ‘rogue and dangerous,’ she has been stationed at central police station in Nakuru from 2015.
She also underwent a sharpshooting training course in Kiganjo between 2008 and 2009.
In 2019, Kangogo was issued with a show cause letter by the then Officer Commanding Station in Nakuru police station.
It remains one of the most notable and documented indiscipline incident, but Shahidi News did not manage to establish the details of the case.
The deceased leaves behind two children aged 8 and 11.
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