The Great Escape: Fugitive Killer Flees Kenyan Custody

A man who fled the United States after allegedly killing his girlfriend has walked out of a Kenyan police station

Kelvin Kangethe, 41, was apprehended last week while leaving a club in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, following a months-long manhunt by Kenyan and American authorities.

A court ordered his detention for 30 days while he awaited possible extradition. Authorities say Mr Kangethe murdered his girlfriend in October and then abandoned her body in a car at Boston Logan International Airport.

He then boarded a flight to his native Kenya. He has not addressed the allegations.

Police have shocked Kenyans by revealing that Mr Kangethe escaped from the Muthaiga Police Station where he was being detained on Wednesday afternoon.

According to the police statement, Mr Kangethe fled during a private meeting with a man who claimed to be his lawyer and came to the station.

“After a short while the prisoner escaped by running away and left the lawyer behind,” the statement said.

At the time, all of the officers were attending a separate meeting called by the station’s head.

Nairobi police commander Adamson Bungei told local media that four officers on duty, as well as the man who met Mr Kangethe, had been arrested.

Officers at the station are restricting access, fearing that more information will leak to the public. Margaret Mbitu’s family told US media that she had planned to end their relationship before Mr Kangethe allegedly killed her. She was a 30-year-old Kenyan-American nurse based in Halifax, Massachusetts. Ms Mbitu was last seen alive leaving her workplace on the evening of October 30, 2018.

She was reported missing that day, and her body was found two days later. Authorities believe Mr Kangethe left the United States between Ms Mbitu’s disappearance and the discovery of her body.

They linked Mr Kangethe to the murder after security footage showed him leaving the airport parking lot where Ms Mbitu’s body was later discovered. He boarded a flight the morning after Ms Mbitu went missing.

A Kenyan court was set to rule on Friday whether Mr Kangethe should be tried in Kenya or extradited to face first-degree murder charges in the United States, after claiming to have renounced his US citizenship last year.